Lecture: Twelve Years to Paint! Ingres and Madame Moitessier

Christopher Riopelle, The Neil Westreich Curator of Post 1800 Paintings, The National Gallery, London
November 30, 2022

Ingres was commissioned to paint the portrait of the beautiful Parisian hostess Inès Moitessier in 1844, but he did not complete it until 1856. This lecture looks at the long, repeatedly interrupted, doubt-ridden process by which an iconic image came to be. Almost as long was the 11 years between the time Picasso first saw the painting, in 1921, and his dazzling interpretation of it in "Woman with a Book," executed rapidly and seemingly without hesitation in 1932. What do the paintings tell us about artistic inspiration and how great artists exploit the work of their peers?

Presented in conjunction with the exhibition, Picasso Ingres: Face to Face, on view October 21, 2022 through January 20, 2023.