3-002-545 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Reclining Venus, 1822. Ingres was deeply inspired by ancient Greek and Roman art as well by Italian painting of the High Renaissance. Although he spent much of his career in Rome, he resided in Florence from 1820 to 1824, where he painted this copy of Titian's "Venus of Urbino" (1538), from the collection at the Pitti Palace. "The Venus of Urbino" had inspired generations of artists. Ingres's version is the same size as the original. He intended it to serve as a model for his close friend, the sculptor Lorenzo Bartolini (1777-1850), who was creating a sculpture based on the same subject.