Portrait of Monsieur Bertin - Preparation and Execution

Preparation and Execution

Ingres was self-demanding in all his artistic endeavours, regardless of his opinion on their genre's worth. Generally consumed with self-doubt, his portraits often took several years to complete, with large gaps of tortured inactivity between sittings. He put a great deal of thought and effort into finding a pose for Bertin that would best convey both the sitter's age and restless energy. Ingres became frustrated by his inability to do so, to the extent that on a number of occasions he broke down in tears in the studio. Bertin remembered, "I would spend my time in consoling him: 'my dear Ingres, don't bother about me; and above all don't torment yourself like that. You want to start my portrait over again? Take your own time for it. You will never tire me, and just as long as you want me to come, I am at your orders.'"

A preparatory study shows Bertin standing with his hand leaning on a table in an almost Napoleonic pose. This was likely an attempt to show how the ruling classes of France were now the members of the business class and bourgeoisie. Eventually the artist noticed a pose his friend, Eugène Emmanuel Amaury Duval, had taken on while seated outside a café. Although his account differs from Ingres', Amaury Duval remembered, "One day Ingres was dining here...chatting to a friend, I was, it appears in the pose of the portrait." According to Bertin, on their next encounter Ingres "came close and speaking almost in my ear said: 'Come sit tomorrow, your portrait is done.'" The final work was completed within a month.

In this new pose the political message becomes more subtle, as Ingres reverses the role of the two men as artist and sitter. Ingres becomes the cool, detached observer, while Bertin, usually the calm and reasoned—almost motherly—patron of the arts, is shown restless and impatient, a mirror of Ingres's irritation at spending time on portraiture when he could be exploring classical themes.