In Holbein's portraits the whole German community of his time has been handed down to us; in Van Dyck's, the aristocracy of England under Charles I. So also Ingres has depicted for us, with all its failings and all its virtues, the middle-class hierarchy of Louis Philippe's reign, which felt itself to be the first estate, the summit of the nation, felt sure of the morrow, was proud of itself, of its intelligence and energy, which pursued with correctness its moral course of life, revered order and hated all excess--including that of the colourist. The same spirit animated this splendid _bourgeois_ of art. His "Bertin the Elder" is justly his most celebrated, enduring work; not the mere painted petrifaction of a newspaper potentate, but one of those portraits which bring a whole epoch home to the mind. It tells of the triumph of the _bourgeoisie_ under the Monarchy of July more fully and clearly than does Louis Blanc's _Histoire de Dix Ans_. In the best of humours, with the four-square solidity of a knowledge of his own worth, which is full of character, this modern newspaper demi-god sits on his chair as on a throne, the throne of the _Journal des Débats_, like a _bourgeois_ Jupiter Tonans, with his hands on his knees. [Illustration: _Baschet._ INGRES. THE FORESTIER FAMILY.] But however highly one must estimate the importance of such a work, Ingres is nevertheless at his highest, not in his painted likenesses, but in his portrait drawings. In the former the hard colouring is still, at times, offensive. Almost always the flesh looks like wood, the dress like metal, blue robes like steel. His drawings, from which this defect is absent, are to be admired without criticism. Ingres lived in his youth, at Rome, as a drawer of portraits. For eight _scudi_ he did the bust, for twelve the whole figure, raging inwardly the while at being kept from "great art" by such journey-work. There is a story told of him, that when one day an Englishman knocked at his door and asked, "Does the draughtsman who makes the small portraits live here?" he shut the door in his face, with the words: "No; he who lives here is a painter." To-day these small masterpieces of which he was ashamed sell for their weight in gold. In the Paris Exhibition of 1889 there was Mme. Chauvin with her Chinese eyes; Mme. Besnard on the terrace of the Pincio with her broad hat and her elegant sunshade; Mrs. Henting with her innocent smile of an "_honnête femme_"; Mrs. Cavendish, an affected young blonde, with her overladen travelling dress and her crazy coiffure. Strange, that a man like Ingres should rave so about new fashions and pretty toilettes!