The Martyrdom of Saint Symphorian

The painting's calm classicism—which testified to Ingres' close study of Raphael and other old masters—presented a challenge to the rising popularity of the romantic style exemplified by Eugène Delacroix.

[4] The painting depicts the Roman proconsul Heraclius and his guards seizing Saint Symphorian and ordering him to prostrate himself in the temple of the pagan goddess Cybele, or be killed.

Ingres wished to present The Martyrdom of Saint Symphorian as his masterpiece and as the result of wide research, but it was a critical failure when it was exhibited at the Salon.

The critic Gabriel Laviron wrote that "many figures would gain by being cut out and separately framed", while Armand-Denis Vergnaud deplored the "muscles seen through a magnifying glass, strained, inflated out of place and proportion to the bodies and limbs on which they are nailed".

"[7] The cool reception given his painting was made all the more galling by the critical success at the same Salon of Delacroix and Paul Delaroche, who displayed "large-scale figure pieces of less than the most elevated subjects", in the words of Marjorie Cohn.

He applied for and received a position as director of the French Academy in Rome, and left Paris in December 1834 to begin a self-imposed exile in Italy.

Although Ingres remained firm in his belief that The Martyrdom of Saint Symphorian was one of his supreme achievements, it has traditionally been counted among his least successful works.

[7] The French art critic Pierre Schneider wrote in 1969 that the painting was "absurd" and exemplified "Ingres' phenomenal misjudgment of his capacities: those of a miniaturist haunted by heroic formats".

[13] More appreciative was Avigdor Arikha, who said "there is a marvelous contrast between the static architecture and the swarming movements of the people in the foreground that makes us think of Bronzino.

[7] When the oil studies were displayed publicly for the first time at a memorial exhibition in 1867, they greatly impressed Gautier, who said "one stands stupified before these ... masterpieces", which reminded him of Greek antique fragments he had seen in Athens.