Apelles holding his palette and brushes, attributed To Jean-auguste-dominique Ingres (1780 – 1867)

Attributed to Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
(Montauban 1780 – Paris 1867)

Apelles holding his palette and brushes
Study for The Apotheosis of Homer – c. 1826–1827

Black chalk, stumping and white heightening on light brown laid paper
300 × 180 mm
Signed and inscribed lower left: “à Mr Visconti / Ingres”

Provenance
Private collection, France

Description
This male figure, seen in left profile, is dressed in a classical chlamys and wears laced sandals. He holds a round painter’s palette in his right hand and a bundle of brushes in his left — traditional attributes of the painter’s craft. These elements, along with the character’s placement in the final painting, clearly identify him as Apelles, the legendary Greek painter whom Ingres places beside Raphael among the artists paying homage to Homer in his celebrated Louvre composition (Salon of 1827, Louvre, INV 5417).

No other known preparatory drawing for Apelles was previously documented, making this sheet a significant addition to the artist’s corpus. Its execution — soft black chalk, sculptural volumes modeled by white highlights — is entirely consistent with Ingres’s autograph studies for The Apotheosis of Homer (cf. Iliad, Met Museum; Virgil, Harvard; Pindar, British Museum).

Inscription “à Mr Visconti”
The drawing is likely dedicated to Louis-Tullius Visconti (1791–1853), a young architect active in Paris by 1826, and known to have corresponded with Ingres (a letter is preserved at the Pierpont Morgan Library). Gifting a classical figure drawing to an architect deeply engaged with Greco-Roman art fits the period’s intellectual and social conventions.

Selected bibliography
– Gaillard, Ingres. Dessins du Louvre, RMN, 1999
– Cohn, The Drawings for the Apotheosis of Homer, Master Drawings, 2004
– Ingres. Dessins du Musée de Montauban, Somogy, 2010