The portrait of ''Mademoiselle Caroline Rivière'' was painted in 1806Dequier, Angèle.
Mademoiselle Caroline Rivière
".

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...

. Retrieved on October 31, 2008. Some sources date the painting to 1805; see Rosenblum, 58 by the French Neoclassical artist

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres ( ; ; 29 August 1780 – 14 January 1867) was a French Neoclassicism, Neoclassical Painting, painter. Ingres was profoundly influenced by past artistic traditions and aspired to become the guardian of academic ...

, and today hangs in the

. It is the third of three portraits of the Rivière family that the artist painted that year. Caroline's father, Philibert Rivière, was a successful court official under Napoleon's empire and sought to commemorate himself, his wife and daughter through a commission with the then young and rising artist—Ingres's portraits of Philibert and his wife are also still extant. Although Ingres favoured subject matter drawn from history or Greek legend, at this early stage in his career, he earned his living mainly through commissions from wealthy patrons. The family lived outside Paris at St. Germain-en-Laye, and Mademoiselle Caroline Rivière would have been between 13 and 15 at the time she was portrayed; Ingres described her as the "ravishing daughter".Rosenblum, 58

Description

Rivière's portrait describes slightly built and youthful femininity and hints at a hesitant openness. The painting is rendered in bright hues and set against a serene white-blue early spring landscape, the freshness of which was intended to reflect the youth of the sitter. The background is not deeply portrayed; the perspective is shallow and rises, according to the art historian Robert Rosenblum, in "flattened horizontal tiers against which the figure seems crisply silhouetted as if in low relief."Rosenblum, 58 Typical of contemporary portraits by Ingres, Caroline lacks anatomical accuracy. Her neck is overly elongated, and the bridge of her nose extends too far. Rivière is portrayed with the stiffness and awkwardness typical of her age, in a manner which was intended to emphasise a sense of the nascent purity and simplicity of her youth. Yet the painting is generally seen in the light of pathos and tragedy, as the sitter died within a year of the work being completed. It was, along with Ingres's two other portrayals of the family, exhibited at the Salon of 1806, but was poorly received for its perceived " Gothicness" (due to its precision of line and enamel finish) and its similarity to

Jan van Eyck Jan van Eyck ( ; ; – 9 July 1441) was a Flemish people, Flemish painter active in Bruges who was one of the early innovators of what became known as Early Netherlandish painting, and one of the most significant representatives of Early Nort ...

and other artists of

Early Netherlandish painting Early Netherlandish painting is the body of work by artists active in the Burgundian Netherlands, Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands during the 15th- and 16th-century Northern Renaissance period, once known as the Flemish Primitives. It flour ...

(in French "Les Primitifs Flamands") who at the time were only just being rediscovered. Further, the manner in which the whiteness of the sitter's dress contrasts with the curve of her boa offended some viewers.Jones, Jonathan.
Mademoiselle Caroline Rivière, Ingres (1805)
. ''The Guardian'', 2 August 2003. Retrieved on 26 October 2008. Today, the painting is typically seen as a peak in Ingres's artistic career, and in this work Ingres introduces an emotional link between figurative and landscape art, and the watery scape behind the sitter evokes rhythms with many of the visual themes presented in the rich imagery of the foreground. In 2003, the art critic Jonathan Jones remarked of the painting:

The sexuality Ingres usually reserved for harem fantasies slips over into the real and respectable world in this charged portrait. His obviously intense visual relationship with his subject and his contentment to look, with a clinical waxy fetishism, at Mademoiselle Rivière's full lips, bared neck, long gloves and spectacularly serpentine boa, lend this picture drama."

''Mademoiselle Caroline Rivière'' was bequeathed to the Louvre in 1870 by Caroline Rivière's sister-in-law.Mademoiselle Caroline Rivière

database. Retrieved on 26 October 2008.

Notes

Bibliography

* Mackrell, Alice. ''Art and Fashion''. London: Batsford, 2005. * Rosenblum, Robert. ''Ingres''. London: Harry N. Abrams, 1990. * Toussaint, Hélène. ''Les Portraits d'Ingres''. Paris: Ministère de la Culture, Editions de la Reunion des musées nationaux, 1985. 28–31. * Whiteley, Jon. "Ingres. London, Washington and New York". ''The Burlington Magazine'', Volume 141, Number 1154, May, 1999.

External links

Analysis
at artble.com
2003 ''Guardian'' discussion on the relationship between the artist and sitter's mother

Entry on Louvre website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mademoiselle Caroline Riviere Portraits by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres 1806 paintings Paintings in the Louvre by French artists 19th-century portraits Portraits of women Portrait paintings in the Louvre Artworks exhibited at the Salon of 1806

Description

See also

Notes

Bibliography

External links