Study for "Roger Freeing Angelica"

This oil, illustrating a scene from the Italian epic poem Orlando Furioso, is a study for a painting intended for the royal residences at Versailles. It is based on classically inspired images of Andromeda — chained to a rock, awaiting rescue by the hero Perseus — that Ingres had seen in Rome. Its naturalism and immediacy suggest that Ingres worked from a live model. The central figure stands in statuesque contrapposto (half rotated, with her weight on one leg), a brown shadow surrounding her like a niche. Her unfinished right hand reaches back and touches her left wrist, as if to confirm the physical reality of her flesh. The gesture is repeated by a second figure, whose attenuated torso suggests a sculptural fragment. The flesh-colored background focuses attention on the sensitive modulations of light and dark through which Ingres, like Perseus, has “liberated” the figures — in this case, from the two-dimensional surface.