Masters in Art, Part 79, Volume 7, July, 1906: Ingres: A Series of Illustrated Monographs
General
Masters in Art, Part 79, Volume 7, July, 1906: Ingres: A Series of Illustrated Monographs
Ingres, Jean-Auguste-Dominique, 1780-1867; Painters -- France -- Biography; Portrait painting, French -- 19th century
After the completion of 'La Source' Ingres occupied himself chiefly
in finishing many of the studies made in his younger days, and in
painting replicas of several of his pictures. In 1862, when over
eighty, he completed a large canvas, commissioned many years before by
Queen Marie Amélie, wife of Louis Philippe. This work, representing
'Christ among the Doctors,' is now in the Museum of Montauban, to
which the artist bequeathed it at his death, together with his
painting of 'Ossian's Dream,' a collection of his drawings and
studies, as well as marbles, bronzes, medals, vases, pictures, books
and engravings, his favorite pieces of furniture, his easel, palette,
brushes, and his famous violin on which almost to the last he played
with unusual skill.
In the same year that saw the completion of his 'Jesus among the
Doctors' an exposition was held in his honor at Montauban, when
Ingres, who was present on the occasion, was greeted with an ovation
by his fellow-townsmen, who presented him with a crown of gold. Not
long afterwards he received news of his appointment as a senator of
France--a flattering testimony to his genius and the highest dignity
which had ever been accorded an artist in that country.
Ingres' last years passed peacefully. His great delight was in his
work and in music. Early in January, 1867, he became absorbed in a
plan of hearing in his own home before he died some of the music of
the composers he most deeply cared for--Gluck, Haydn, Beethoven, and
Mozart. A chamber concert was accordingly arranged, and a number of
his special friends were invited to the festival, which opened with a
grand dinner. Ingres--"Father Ingres," as he was called--was in the
best of spirits, and, notwithstanding his advanced age, seemingly in
the best of health. Although too old to himself play on his violin,
he had lost none of his keen enjoyment of music, and on this occasion
his enthusiasm was that of youth. He listened enraptured to the works
of his favorite composers played by some of the most skilled musicians
of Paris, and finally begged that before the evening was over he might
hear the concerto by Viotti which, as a boy of twelve, he had played
in the theater at Toulouse.
During the night following this memorable little concert Ingres was
awakened by the fall of a burning log from the fireplace to the floor
of his chamber. Instead of ringing for a servant, he himself restored
the log to its place and opened the window to free the room from
smoke. In the few moments this occupied he took a severe cold. A cough
developed, and one week later, on January 14, 1867, he died, in the
eighty-seventh year of his age.
His funeral was held three days afterwards. An immense crowd followed
the hearse which conveyed his remains from his home on the Quai
Voltaire, Paris, to the Church of St. Thomas Aquinas, where the
services were held, and thence to the cemetery of Père-Lachaise, where
he was laid to rest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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