Jacques-Louis Leblanc (1774–1846)

Jacques-Louis Leblanc (1774–1846)

Jacques-Louis Leblanc (1774–1846)

Artist:Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (French, Montauban 1780–1867 Paris)
Date:1823
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:47 5/8 x 37 5/8 in. (121 x 95.6 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, Wolfe Fund, 1918
Accession Number:19.77.1
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 801
This portrait of Leblanc and that of his wife (19.77.2) were painted in 1823, shortly after Ingres met the couple in Florence. Madame Leblanc had been lady-in-waiting to the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, Napoleon’s sister Élisa Bacchiochi; Monsieur Leblanc was her secretary. Ingres described him as "a Frenchman, very rich and also quite generous and good, who has adopted us, to the point of overwhelming us with kindnesses and also with requests for paintings portraits, etc." Edgar Degas, who first saw these portraits in 1854, described his acquisition of them in 1896 as "the event of my life as a collector." The Metropolitan bought them from Degas’s estate sale in 1918.

Provenance

M. and Mme Jacques-Louis Leblanc, Florence, later Paris (1823–her d. 1839); Jacques-Louis Leblanc, Paris, later Tours (1839–d. 1846); their son, ?Félix-Jerôme-François-Jacques Leblanc, Paris (1846–d. 1886); his sister, Mme Jean-Henri Place, née Isaure Juliette-Joséphine Leblanc, Paris (1846–d. 1895; her posthumous sale [no published catalogue], Hôtel Drouot, Paris, January 23, 1896, no. 48 as "un portrait d'homme par Ingres," for Fr 3,500 to Durand-Ruel for Degas and Albert Bartholomé [see Notes]); Hilaire-Germain-Edgar Degas, Paris (1896–d. 1917, his estate sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, March 26–27, 1918, no. 54, to MMA)

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