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Odalisque in Grisaille

ca. 1824–34
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 801

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

Object Information
  • 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

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