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A female nude with her arms raised: a study for the figure of France graphite on light brown paper, squared in graphite 173/4 x 6 3/8 in. (451 x 161 mm.) PROVENANCE The artist's studio stamp (L. 1477). With Charles E. Slatkin Galleries, New York. Nathan J. Cohn, Spring Valley, New York. With H. Shickman, New York, 1978. EXHIBITION Cambridge, Fogg Art Museum and elsewhere, Ingres Centennial Exhibition, 1967, no. 102. NOTES For the figure of France to the left of Ingres' vast roundel of The Apotheosis of Napoleon, which measured five metres in diameter. The roundel was commissioned for the ceiling of the Salon de l'Empereur at the H“tel de Ville, Paris, but was destroyed by fire on 24 May 1871. The composition is known through oil sketches at the Louvre (Giraudon 13179) and the Mus‚e Carnavalet, Paris (G. Wildenstein, The Paintings of J.A.D. Ingres, London, 1956, no. 271, pl. 100), and a watercolour also at the Louvre (J. Guiffrey and P. Marcel, Inventaire g‚n‚ral des Dessins du Mus‚e du Louvre et du Mus‚e de Versailles, Ecole fran‡aise, Paris, 1911, VI, no. 5030). Although Ingres received the commission from the government on 2 March 1853, there is some evidence that he had already begun the preparatory work earlier. According to the contract, the picture, for which Ingres received 60,000 Francs, had to be finished the same year, a stipulation that the artist met. The commission further included the representation of eight major cities conquered by Napoleon: Rome, Vienna, Milan, Naples, Moscow, Cairo, Berlin and Madrid. The Apotheosis was painted in a studio which was put at Ingres' disposal by his friend, the engraver Edouard Gatteaux, in the rue de Lille. In February 1854 Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eug‚nie visited the artist's studio to examine the painting, which met with their approval. In 1855 the painting had a triumphant success at the Exposition Universelle. Ingres' composition represents the Emperor standing in a quadriga, rising above the island of St. Helena. Fame holds a laurel wreath above the Emperor's head, while Victory guides the direction of the chariot. On the lower left, the composition includes the mourning figure of France, while Nemesis, behind the deserted throne, expels the personifications of Crime and Anarchy, on the right. The iconography of the painting is of a highly political nature. Prince Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, who had been elected President of the second Republic from 1848-52, was proclaimed Emperor under the name of Emperor Napoleon III in December 1852, only a few months before the painting was commissioned. Other studies for the figure of France, showing her draped in a long tunic, are at the Mus‚e Ingres at Montauban (G. Vigne, Dessins d'Ingres, Catalogue raisonn‚ des dessins du mus‚e de Montauban, Paris, 1995, no. 2189) and at the Fogg Art Museum (Harvard University, op. cit., 1967, no. 103). The latter drawing shows the same model as the present sheet, and is identified in Ingres' hand as Hortense de Fontana, living at 26 rue Saint Georges in Paris.