Portrait of Charles Cordier
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867) · 1811
A man of about thirty-four leans on a broken block of ancient stone and looks straight out with a calm, faintly ironic expression. He is dressed in the fashion of 1811: a black frock coat with brass buttons, white waistcoat, high white collar and cravat, his curly brown hair brushed forward. He holds his black hat in his right hand while the left slips into his pocket, and a gold chain with seals hangs at his waist. The red ribbon of the Legion of Honour is sewn to his lapel. Behind him at the left a landscape opens onto an Italian hill town and ruins, probably the temple of Vesta at Tivoli, under a stormy grey sky.
Charles Cordier was a French official in Rome, inspector of the registry and state domains, when Ingres painted him there in 1811, three years after Oedipus. According to his daughter, the background of Tivoli was painted by Ingres's friend Granet, a landscape specialist. The signature, with the place and date, is at the lower left. Cordier later became director of state domains in Paris and lived to ninety-three; his daughter, Léonie Mortier, bequeathed the portrait to the Louvre in 1886.
Did You Know? According to the sitter's daughter, the landscape of Tivoli behind him was painted by Ingres's friend Granet.
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