Paolo and Francesca (Ingres)

The Angers version

Paolo and Francesca is painting by the French artist Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, produced in seven known between 1814 and 1819. It derives from the story of Paolo and Francesca in Dante's Inferno. With Ingres' The Engagement of Raphael, these works represent one of the first examples of the troubador style.

Of the seven known versions, that in the Musée des beaux-arts d'Angers is considered the most complete, notably in the exaggerated form of Paolo, whose neck recalls the same artist's Jupiter and Thetis. The frontality of the composition and the details of the room and clothes refer back to the Northern Renaissance.

Bibliography

• Daniel Ternois, Ingres, Paris, Fernand Nathan, 1980 (ISBN 2-09-284-557-8)
• Robert Rosenblum, Ingres, Paris, Cercle d'Art, coll. « La Bibliothèque des Grands Peintres », 1986 (ISBN 2-7022-0192-X)