Woman with a Book, Pablo Picasso, 1932 / Madame Moitessier, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 1856
(Picture: © The National Gallery, London / © Succession Picasso/DACS 2021 / photo The Norton Simon Foundation )Room 46 at the National Gallery is an intimate space, just the size to see a few works in close proximity. Not long ago, it hosted Gainsborough’s Blue Boy alongside portraits by Van Dyck that had inspired it. Now, we find just two pictures side by side, by Ingres and Picasso, separated by more than 80 years in time and by a revolution in artistic form. And yet, the one unmistakably derives from the other.
Madame Moitessier is an opulent figure, painted in the grand formal style, with a finger to her temple, not so much supporting her head as indicating repose. Her expression is enigmatic, with a Mona Lisa smile. And thank goodness for the expanse of white bosom and shoulders that separates her face from her frock, because her dress is made of the kind of riotous floral pattern, with matching trimmings, bow, fringes and whopping brooch, which would overwhelm a less Junoesque figure. The bare arms only accentuate the bracelets of many gems. Now this is conspicuous consumption: Monsieur Moitessier got his money’s worth from his wife’s Lyons silk dress. And for good measure we get the lady from behind too, her elaborate lace hair ornament visible in the mirror.
Channelling Ingres was, for Picasso, something of a habit, but what is interesting is what he extracts from the Ingres portrait. Indeed, the gestation of the painting was long; he painted it in 1932, 11 years after he saw the Ingres, which had been out of public view for 40 years. But so far from a portrait of a respectable and devout married lady, we find in Woman with a Book his young mistress, Marie Therese Walter.
The latent sensuality of the original is replaced by the pert, unselfconscious sexuality of the blonde girl: it doesn’t take long for the eye to rest on the white orbs with scarlet nipples, presented rather than obscured by black lace underpinnings, which somehow escaped her green dress. The pose is unmistakable, the famously languid fingers splayed. The portrait is a riot of bold, brash colour blocks, most fabulously the scarlet and orange of the armchair. But the shadowy reflection is of an enigmatic pared down profile.
The Picasso then is anything but a copy of the Ingres: it’s about as different as can be, but the similarities are unmistakable. And what we find from the catalogue is that there was a common denominator for both portraits, a Roman fresco from Herculaneum which both Ingres and Picasso admired, showing the figure of Arcadia, with her fingers resting on her temple, her expression detached, and two fine bracelets on her bare arms.
As an exploration of how artists inspire one another and are in turn mutually inspired by antiquity, this little show is illuminating. On the walls two quotations make the point. “Who is there among the greats who has not imitated?” asks Ingres. Picasso, for his part, observes that a true artist doesn’t borrow; he steals. But if this is theft, it’s also transmutation of the loot: that is to say, it’s a tribute.
