Portrait of Marie-Françoise Rivière

[1] Madame Rivière, born Marie-Françoise-Jacquette-Bibiane Blot de Beauregard, and known as Sabine, married Philibert Rivière de L'Isle, an influential court official in the Napoleonic Empire,[2] who commissioned this work, along with portraits of himself and their daughter, Caroline.

[1] Seated on a blue cushion or sofa, Sabine, then in her mid-30s, wears a low-cut and wide necked prom dress, with a high waist and short sleeves, a cream colored chiffon, and a cashmere shawl.

The technique however was to become a hallmark on Ingres' female portraits, in this case the arm is lengthened to rhyme with the curve of the oval frame.

Philibert Rivière was likely impressed by the painter's 1804 Bonaparte, First Consul; his own portrait echoes the emperor's pose.

[4] Ingres' never saw the three Rivière paintings after the 1808 Salon, he tried to find and reunite them for an 1855 exhibition, but all the sitters had died (Caroline in 1807, Philibert in 1816, and Sabine in 1848), and could not determine the location of the canvasses.