Ingres Exhibition Opens at the Louvre

The name Ingres conjures elegant portraits and audaciously sensual nudes, like the Louvre’s own Grande Odalisque of 1814. But as this retrospective—surprisingly, the first in some 40 years— makes clear, there is far more to Ingres than just pretty ladies. Once pigeonholed as the academic adversary to Delacroix and other forces of 19th-century Romantic modernism, Ingres is now getting a second look.

This massive exhibition in the Louvre’s Napoléon Hall traces the often contradictory turns of Ingres’ complex artistic career (1797-1867) with 80 paintings and 104 drawings, many of them lent from foreign collections.

Visit the exhibition website (in English) which includes an interesting in-depth feature on Ingres’ Monsieur Bertin (1832)

Ingres (1780-1867)
Napoléon Hall
Musée du Louvre
Closed Tuesdays, late night opening on Wed and Fri, until 9:15pm

Read about other exhibitions in Paris at our "Les Expos en Cours" page.

Congratulations to Jo Metz, our Le Sueur Landmarks Winner!

Thank you to everyone who enthusiastically participated in our Le Sueur quiz. We heard from many diehard Parisophiles who indeed answered correctly, but Jo Metz from Danville, California was the first to do so.

Jo wins a free tour of the Louvre, a prize she plans to enjoy on her spring trip to Paris.

Some of the identifiable landmarks in the painting—in addition to those we listed—were: Tour Saint-Jacques-de-la-Boucherie, Saint-Paul (round dome in distance), St Gervais-St Protais, Sainte-Chapelle, Conciergerie, and Notre Dame.

As for our bonus bridge question—today, you can stand on either the Pont Carrousel or the Pont des Arts to recreate Le Sueur’s view. Given the date of the painting (1645-48) however, what bridge might have the artist have used?—congratulations to Mike Engler, who was the first to come up with a likely answer. Both the Pont des Arts and Pont du Carrousel were built after the date of the painting, so the bridge the artist might have used was an earlier wooded bridge called Pont Barbier (also called the Pont Rouge) which burned in 1654. The stone Pont Royal subsequently replaced it.

Read more about our "Closer Look" tours at the Louvre

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