La Belle Zélie

Portrait of Madame Aymon, La Belle Zélie is an 1806 oil on canvas painting by the French artist Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres.

It first came to public notice during an 1867 Ingres exhibition in Paris and was acquired by the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen in 1870.

[1] Although the work is signed and dated on the lower left of the canvas,[1] the identity of the sitter is uncertain.

The painting was untitled when it entered the collection of the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen, shortly beforehand she was tentatively identified as a Madame Aymon (disputed by the Beaux-Arts de Rouen), with the portrait given the nickname of La belle Zélie, a reference to a popular song in the 1870s,[1] mentioned because of the "subtle hint of vulgarity" apparent in the painting.

"Sensuous and sleepy",[4] she bears facial resemblance to figures in Ingres' later "Odalisque" paintings of harem women.