The "Ingres" special exhibition, held from February 24 to May 15, 2006, at the Louvre, featured 180 paintings and drawings. It was the most comprehensive Ingres exhibition in Paris in over twenty years, making it undoubtedly the most popular and visually striking show of the first half of 2006 in the city of art.
Ingres (1780–1867) was the most representative painter active during the Neoclassical and Romantic periods of the 19th century. A prominent student of the Neoclassical master David, he traveled to Italy multiple times, where he discovered Raphael, leading him to decide to become a history painter. His works achieve perfect form through simplification and deformation within an idealized classical realism. His pieces frequently feature sensual nude women, each vividly rendered and derived from exquisite sketches.
Ingres painted many nudes throughout his life. From the early "The Great Bather" to the late "The Small Bather," after years of profound study, he culminated his aesthetic peak in "The Turkish Bath" (created when he was already 84 years old; this is his most perfect masterpiece from his later years).
