Odalisque in Grisaille
This is an unfinished repetition, reduced in size and much simplified, of the celebrated Grande Odalisque of 1814 (Musée du Louvre, Paris), an imagined concubine in a Middle Eastern harem. The painting was central to Ingres’s conception of ideal beauty, and its influence was bolstered by his longevity: Ingres continued to paint nudes like this one as late as the 1860s, by which time he had trained hundreds of followers. Paintings in shades of gray—en grisaille—were often made to establish variations in tone as a guide to engravers of black and white reproductive prints, but the intended purpose of this work remains uncertain.
Artwork Details
- Title: Odalisque in Grisaille
- Artist: Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (French, Montauban 1780–1867 Paris) and Workshop
- Date: ca. 1824–34
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 32 3/4 x 43 in. (83.2 x 109.2 cm)
- Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, Wolfe Fund, 1938
- Object Number: 38.65
- Curatorial Department: European Paintings
Audio
6024. Odalisque in Grisaille, Part 1
Gallery 801
This painting is a copy of one of Ingres's most celebrated productions, the famous Grande Odalisque in the Louvre. It is executed exclusively in shades of grey, save for the slight blush of color most noticeable along the back and the right ear of the figure. Ingres made a number of much-publicized pronouncements about the relevant insignificance of color, and here he puts his words to practice.
When the original painting in the Louvre was exhibited at the Salon in 1819, it elicited nothing but hostility from the critics, who were scandalized by what they considered to be the figure's outrageous anatomical distortions. And indeed, the creature in Ingres's canvas is utterly unknown in nature. Her torso and limbs have been radically elongated, prompting one critic to quip famously that she has three vertebrae too many. Others have found fault with the odalisque's overly expansive and amorphous backside, which has been compared to everything from leeches to Chicken Kiev.
The history of this work and even its attribution to Ingres have been the subject of considerable art historical debate. To hear more about this controversy, press the play button now.
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