Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

This small pencil portrait is a friendship token, a gift from Ingres, its creator, to the sitter, the landscape painter Thomas-Charles Naudet. After training in Paris, both competed for and won the opportunity to study at the French Academy in Rome as pensionnaires, which included funding from the French government and room and board at the Villa Medici. The community at the French Academy pursued all branches of art-making, exploring the city together, learning from one another’s work, and developing lifelong friendships. Ingres’s portrait emphasizes his friend’s bright eyes and curly hair, signifiers of an active imagination and an intense appreciation for beauty.