No other artist than Ingres could have placed this poignant drama on canvas without exciting ridicule. “Stratonice” was exhibited by the Duke of Orleans in one of the galleries of the Pavilion of Marsan, and the public were freely admitted to see it. All the visitors were enchanted with it. The dramatic character of the subject was not displeasing to the Parisian public, and the artists admired the delicate taste, the pathetic grace, and the impeccable style of the workmanship. Above all, the charm of the _svelte_ and supple figure of the heroine, her head bowed under the weight of her culpable beauty, touched all hearts. Another small picture, known indifferently as “The Odalisque with the Slave” or the “Small Odalisque,” was finished about the same time as the “Stratonice.” This was painted for the artist’s friend M. Marcotte, but is now in the Louvre. In the “Odalisque” as in the “Stratonice” we find a profusion of the details dear to Hittorf, but the figure of the beautiful Circassian curled up on the rich carpet of the harem is a masterpiece of plastic form. In this lovely body the artist has symbolised something of that perverse melancholy, that dangerous voluptuousness, which has found such moving expression in some of Baudelaire’s poems. * * * * * In the spring of 1841 Ingres returned to Paris. He found his reputation increased by the success of the “Stratonice.” His brother artists hailed him as their leader. A banquet was offered to him by all the artists present in the capital, painters, sculptors, and architects, the only prominent absentee being Eugène Delacroix, the leader of the Romantics. Delacroix did not wish to participate in the triumph of his rival, and this triumph, so unanimously accorded, only served to widen the breach between the two masters. Henceforth the struggle between them became more bitter. Each party pursued the other without mercy, neither disdaining to use any kind of weapon that came to hand.