Ingres: 'Madame Moitessier' – a longer look

Fascinating workshop at the National Gallery focusing on “Madame Moitessier” by Ingres led by Jacqui Ansell.

We started off in the gallery looking at the picture and talking about the context in which it was painted and other contemporary works in the gallery. We also looked in detail at the picture and talked about how it had taken him 12 years to paint and how the work changed in that time as fashion changed. The figure had started off in a round chair in a narrower yellow dress by the time this was finished this would have looked old fashioned and of course a lady wants to be shown in her best new clothes! The frame is its original and has the same flowers on it as on the dress.

Back at the seminar room we talked more about Ingres’s career and how this picture fitted in. We talked about his exile in Rome and the exquisite drawings he did of British tourists. We looked at other portraits of fashionable women by him and compared the techniques and also at other pictures in which he had used mirrors.

We talked a lot about her dress and the fashion at the time as Jacqui is a dress historian.  I found this fascinating and could happily go to a whole talk on clothes in pictures and how they are represented.

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