Comtesse de La Tour-Maubourg (Marie-Louise-Charlotte-Gabrielle Thomas de Pange, 1816–1850)  1841

This likeness of the wife of the French ambassador to the Vatican expresses Chassériau’s subtle defiance of J. A. D. Ingres, his teacher. He subverted Ingres’s approach by casting a melancholic mood over the picture, by banishing bright colors, and by abandoning the master’s meticulous naturalism and smooth polish for a stylized and painterly depiction of sitter and settin...