Bust of a Gypsy Girl

The Bust of a Gypsy Girl is an intimate and highly controlled portrait created by the French Neoclassical master Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres in 1819. Executed entirely in graphite on wove paper, this drawing exemplifies Ingres’s renowned draftsmanship, a core discipline in his artistic philosophy that prioritized linear purity and precise form over coloristic effects. The meticulous handling of the graphite achieves delicate gradations of shading, resulting in an intensely focused, almost sculptural representation of the young sitter.

Ingres completed this piece while living in Rome, a period (1806-1824) during which he produced a significant volume of highly sought-after portrait studies of the local populace and visiting dignitaries. Though simple in its presentation, the work captures the defining features and direct, unidealized gaze of the subject, classifying it as a sensitive genre portrait of a young girl. The designation "Gypsy Girl" (or zingara) reflects the 19th-century European fascination with, and often romanticized categorization of, marginalized or traveling populations encountered throughout the Italian peninsula.

As one of Ingres's celebrated preparatory works, this study emphasizes the artist's dedication to the supremacy of the line, a hallmark that defined his subsequent career. The finished drawing remains a significant example of his production during the Roman period and is currently held within the expansive collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The enduring appeal of this detailed figure study ensures that high-quality prints derived from the original artwork are frequently made available through public domain archives, allowing for broad appreciation of Ingres's mastery of the pencil.