General Louis-Étienne Dulong de Rosnay 1818

This is Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres's drawing of General Louis-Étienne Dulong de Rosnay. We believe it was made in 1812. Ingres was a master of line and form, often associated with Neoclassicism, a style that looked back to ancient Greece and Rome for inspiration. Here, the crispness of the general's uniform and the precision of the architectural backdrop evoke a sense of order and authority. France, at the time, was under the rule of Napoleon Bonaparte, a period marked by military expansion and a desire to emulate the grandeur of past empires. Ingres was part of a cultural project that used art to legitimize Napoleon’s regime by associating it with the power and stability of classical antiquity. By studying the art and history of this period, and the institutional forces that shaped artistic production, we can better understand how art served political purposes. This drawing is more than just a portrait, it's a window into a society grappling with its own identity and place in history.