Following his stay in Rome as a guest at the French Academy, Ingres stayed in Italy until 1824. The painter then made a living from portrait commissions and painted small historical scenes for private customers.
He
painted the death of Leonardo, with Francis I receiving his last breaths, for
the Count de Blacas, ambassador of Louis XVIII and an influential figure during
the Restoration. The work has a troubadour feel and was freely inspired by
French history seen from the angle of an edifying anecdote.
We know that Leonardo, who had come to France at
the invitation of Francis I, died in Amboise in
1519. The undoubtedly fictitious story of his death in the presence of the king
comes from The Lives by Vasari. This work, which appeared in 1550, celebrates
the excellence of Italian painting following an ascending curve that starts
with Cimabue and ends with Michelangelo and Raphael.
Having dropped out of his studies at a young age, the painter relied more on
his exceptional visual memory than his literary knowledge to compose historical
subjects. He in fact used various famous paintings exhibited at the Louvre Museum as
models to represent the characters in the scene. The use of iconographic
citation can be clearly seen in the face of Francis I, transposed from the
portrait painted by Titian in 1538. The figure of the dying Leonardo is a
typically “Ingresque” creation on the other hand, with the expressive
contortion of the neck and subtle colour scheme.
In the style of Romantic theatre, in one scene Ingres combined the sublime
emotion inspired by the death of the hero with a diversion provided by more
anecdotal characters, who restore the picturesque quality of en era.
