Madame Jacques-Louis Leblanc (Françoise Poncelle, 1788–1839)  1823

For this portrait there are more than two dozen drawings investigating a variety of poses (Musée Ingres, Montauban). Similar studies do not exist for the likeness of Madame Leblanc’s husband (19.77.1). The two paintings—the only pair of portraits Ingres produced—were probably intended to hang facing one another, since the light falls differently in each, but they are unifi...