Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (Montauban 1780-1867 Paris)

The daughter of the French archaeologist Désiré Raoul-Rochette (1790-1854) and granddaughter of the Neoclassical sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828), Anne-Joséphine-Cécile Raoul-Rochette (1817-1893) is finely portrayed by Ingres in this drawing dated 1834, when the sitter was just seventeen years old. A painter and engraver, Joséphine entered Ingres’ studio at an early age, possibly around the time of this portrait, and through him she met her future husband, the Italian Luigi Calamatta (1801-1868), Ingres’ favourite engraver. The couple married in 1840, but their turbulent relationship lasted little more than a decade when in 1852, in a twist worthy of Anna Karenina, she abandoned her ‘effeminate’ husband and twelve-year old daughter Lina for another man, causing scandal and turmoil, as reported by Edmond de Goncourt (see A. Chevereau, ‘Joséphine Calamatta, élève d’Ingres et mère (méconnue) de Lina’, Les Amis de George Sand, no. 7, 1986, pp. 25-30).

In this portrait, the artist finds a perfect balance between the carefully described face of the sitter and the sketchier, unfinished quality of her gown. Ingres’ strong bond with the Raoul-Rochette family is attested by three further portrait drawings depicting family members: Joséphine’s father Désiré, in the Albertina, Vienna (inv. 24220; Naef, op. cit., 1980, V, no. 333); her mother Antoinette-Claude Houdon, at the Cleveland Museum of Art (inv. 1927.437; op. cit., no. 334), both executed in 1830; and a study of her sister Angeline, executed in 1834, formerly with Jan Krugier, and offered at Sotheby's, Paris, 25 June 2008, lot 12 (op. cit., no. 350).