Portrait of Jean-Louis Robin

Prints and Drawings

c. 1810

Jean–Auguste–Dominique Ingres
French, 1780–1867

Ingres famously said that “Drawing is everything; it is all of art,” and that “Smoke itself should be expressed by a line.” His celebrated portrait drawings exemplify his devotion to pure line.
Ingres drew his portrait of Jean-Louis Robin, chief physician of the French Hospital in Rome, from the Villa Medici, the site of the French Academy in Rome, where the artist was in residence at the time. In the distance, drawn with technical precision, is Saint Peter’s Basilica.
Using only graphite, with an astonishing economy of means and in the absence of color and modeling, Ingres rendered a personality and a setting as fully realized as in any painted portrait.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres
Title: Portrait of Jean-Louis Robin
Place: France (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: Made 1809–1810
Medium: Graphite, with stumping, on ivory wove paper
Dimensions: 28.4 × 22.3 cm (11 3/16 × 8 13/16 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Emily Crane Chadbourne
Reference Number: 1953.204
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/79400/manifest.json

Henri Delaborde, Ingres: Sa Vie, Ses Travaux, Sa Doctrine (Paris, 1870), p. 312, no. 409.
Henry Lapauze, Jean Briant Paysagiste, Maître d’Ingres, et le Paysage Dans l’Oeuvre de Ingres (Paris, 1911) pp. 48 and 51 (ill.).
Morton D. Zabel, “Ingres in America,” The Arts 16:6 (February 1930), pp. 369-82 and 436 (ill.).
Frederick Cummings, “Romantic Portraitist, Three Drawings by Ingres,” Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Art, XLIV (1965), pl. 70.
Hans Naef, Die Bildniszeichnungen von J.-A.-D. Ingres, IV (Bern, 1977-1980), pp. 108-109, pl. 57.
Daniel Ternois, Ingres (Milan, 1980), fig. 35.
Ingres Portrait Drawings: 44 Works (New York, 1993), p. 14 (ill.).
Uwe Fleckner, Abbild und Abstraktion (Mainz, 1995), p. 122 (ill.).
Mathieu Meras and Alain Godeau, Colloque Ingres: Les Actes du Colloque Ingres on été edités par les Amis du Musée Ingres (Montauban,1969).
Pierre Rosenberg, From Drawing to Painting: Poussin, Watteau, Fragonard, David and Ingres (Princeton, 1996), pp. 120-121, fig. 9.

The Art Institute of Chicago, “Drawings from the Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago,” 1961, cat. 86.
New York, Wildenstein and Company, “Master Drawings from The Art Institute of Chicago,” October 17-November 30, 1963, n.p., cat. 76, pl. XXXI.
Cambridge, Mass., Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, “Ingres Centennial Exhibition,” February 12-April 9, 1967, cat. 13 (ill.).
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, “Ingres in Rome: A Loan Exhibition from the Musée Ingres, Montauban, and American Collectors,” 1971, p. 128, cat. 144 (ill.); traveled to New York, Wildenstein and Company, the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and Kansas City, Mo., the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art.
Dayton, Ohio, Dayton Art Institute, “French Artists in Italy, 1600-1900,” cat. 44 (ill).
Washington, D.C., The National Gallery of Art, “Portraits by Ingres: Image of an Epoch,” May 23-August 22, 1999, p. 171, cat. 44 (ill.), cat. by Gary Tinterow, Philip Conisbee, et. al.; traveled to New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, September 27, 1999-January 2, 2000.
The Art Institute of Chicago, “Gods and (Super)heroes: Drawing in an Age of Revolution”, November 16, 2017 - April 1, 2018.

Jean-Louis Robin, France (died 1846) [according to Naef 1977]; given or bequeathed to Robin’s relative M. Merandon, Autun [according to Naef 1977]; sold to Eugene Froment-Delormel for Amaury-Duval (died 1885), France, 1875 [according to Naef 1977]; bequeathed to Eugene Froment-Delormel (died 1900), Paris; by descent to his daughter, Mme. Mazeran [according to Naef 1977]; given to her cousin, Maurice Bouts, 1902 [according to Naef 1977]. Sold, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, June 29, 1927, lot 31 to Cesar de Hauke, France, for 7,000 francs [according to Naef 1977]; sold to Emily Crane Chadbourne (1871-1964), Washington D.C., 1927 [according to Naef 1977]; given to the Art Institute, 1953.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.