Lot 105: Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres (Montauban 1780-1867 Paris)

Portrait of Alexis-Honor‚ Roch‚, standing in a mountainous landscape, before a battle inscribed and dated 'A. Roche, Officier du g‚nie, a l'arm‚e d'Italie. le 3 septembre 1796.' on the mount and with inscription 'Dessin‚ par Ingres fils ag‚ de 17 ans ‚lŠve de David. Peintre c‚lŠbre' on a label attached to the original backing pen and brown ink, brown wash 15 x 12 1/2 in. (381 x 317 mm.) PROVENANCE Alexis-Honor‚ Roch‚ (1759-1812), to his son Jean-Baptiste-Alexis Roch‚ (died 1863) to his wife Madame Jean-Baptiste-Alexis Roch‚, ne‚ Th‚rŠse Bomberault (died 1874) to her husband's nephew Jean-Baptiste-Alfred Demons (died 1893) to his daughter Madame Charles-Marie-Achille Roux Joffrenot de Montlebert, n‚e Th‚rŠse-Marie Demons (died 1947), to her daughter Madame Fran‡ois Urvoy de Portzamparc, n‚e Simone Roux de Montlebert (died 1953), to her son Fran‡ois Urvoy de Portzamparc LITERATURE H. Naef, Die Bildnisszeichnungen von J.A.D. Ingres, Bern, 1977, I, pp. 69-74, fig. 1, IV, pp. 22-3, no. 9. EXHIBITION Paris, Salon des Arts-Unis, Dessins [d'Ingres] tir‚s de collections d'amateurs, 1861. NOTES This drawing is certainly the largest and most ambitious portrait drawing Ingres executed before he went to Italy in 1806. This portrait was drawn by Ingres in September 1796 while he was living in Toulouse and studying at the Ecole Centrale du D‚partement de Haute Garonne (formerly known as Acad‚mie Royale de Peinture, Sculpture et Architecture). His father thought there from 1790, but probably his most influential professors there was the portrait painter Joseph Roques (1754-1847). Most of the other portraits produced during that period are small medallions executed in a miniaturist technique (H. Naef, op. cit., nos. 2-4, 6, 10-15, 22-5). The few larger portrait drawings (H. Naef, op. cit., nos. 1, 16 and 26), done also in a very refined pencil technique, are very conventional. The present sheet with its unusual pose and the background landscape, announces the portraits of the Roman period such as the Portrait of the G‚n‚ral Louis-Etienne Dulong de Rosnay of 1818 sold at Christie's New York, 22 May 1997, Lot 17. In the present drawing Ingres has depicted the sitter during in his Italian campaign, standing proudly in a landscape before a raging battle and leaning on his sword. When this portrait was executed in September 1796 Alexis-Honor‚ Roch‚ (1759-1812) had just returned from Italy where he had been since September 1795. He was then a member of the Engineering corps of the Revolutionary army stationed in Toulouse. Born in Orl‚ans on 30 May 1759 Roch‚ specialised in military fortifications and civilian architecture, and served in 1793-5 in the armies of the Pyr‚n‚es-Occidentales. Later he participated to Bonaparte's Italian campaigns. After two years in Toulouse in 1798 he worked on the fortifications in the Italian armies. By mid-July 1800 he was in the ports of Bordeaux and Rochefort. In 1807 he joined the Army in Portugal, but when Junot capitulated in 1808 he returned to France. He died four years later. His son, who also owned the present drawing, served in the same military corps as his father. After the Napoleonic wars he became a civil architect in Bordeaux, and in this capacity designed the tomb of the g‚n‚ral Charles Delacroix, brother of EugŠne Delacroix.