Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

(C) 2015 Sketch of Ingres drawing Dale DiMauro

Last week, my wife and I visited the Frick Museum in New York City. It is a handsome museum fitted into an elegant mansion across the street from Central Park. Of the many lovely paintings on exhibit, which include Rembrandt, Vermeer and Whistler, I admire Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres work. I am fond of Ingres work, not only for his paintings but superb drawing abilities. When you look at many of Ingres portrait drawings it appears as if he did not lift his pencil from the paper until he was done. 

Ingres has been considered one of the great masters of all time. He has been credited with depicting the transformation of fashionable women for over half a century in France and witnessing the development of a consumer society. There is even drawing paper available today attributed to Ingres. This is a wove paper with a very smooth surface, which Ingres preferred.

At the Frick, I was reminded that I had picked up a book in the spring on Ingres, called Ingres: 162 Master Drawings by Blagoy Kiroff. Since I was pressed for time, I did a sketch from Kiroff's book on one of Ingres portrait drawings, titled Armand Bertin, dated 1842. It was an opportunity to study Ingres' technique while utilizing these smearless charcoal pencils, which I purchased at the end of last winter.