Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres dominated French painting for much of the nineteenth century, from his emergence as the leading student of Jacques-Louis David and winner in 1801 of the prestigious Rome Prize, to his death in 1867. A champion of classicism and a devotee of Raphael and Poussin, Ingres's conviction that color should serve elegant line breathed new life into a century-old artistic debate. It was in drawing that Ingres established his legacy; he is considered to be one of the greatest draftsmen of all time. He was a staunch advocate of history painting, yet his genius is most evident in his sensitive portraits and luscious nudes. His intentional drawing "faults"-the ambiguous relationship of a mirrored reflection to a sitter, the inscrutable hinge of a shoulder to an arm, or an unlikely ruffle of fingers and cocked wrist-link Ingres's painting to some of the most audaciously expressive innovations of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, inc! luding those of Degas, Cézanne, Matisse, and Picasso.

In this comprehensive, lavishly illustrated volume Georges Vigne examines Ingres's artistic life and brings together a staggering number of drawings, studies, and compositions. Guided by careful scrutiny of drawings and documents, Vigne reappraises deep-rooted assumptions and offers a wealth of candid insights on issues such as Ingres's faithful studio assistants, his official commissions that could weave in and out of political regimes, the legendary rivalries with Delacroix and the Romantics, and the curious motivation behind Ingres's seemingly endless line of copies and revisions of his earlier compositions.

Finally, as an indispensable resource to scholars, this volume reproduces, with Vigne's methodical transcriptions and annotations, the valuable pages of the notebooks in which Ingres listed and referred to his paintings.

This authoritative volume on Ingres is also the most complete monograph on any artist of his generation and a valuable chronicle of the man behind the last great studio in the classical tradition.