Henri Lehmann

The work Henri Lehmann is a refined graphite drawing created by the master Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres in 1850. Classified as a drawing and a portrait of a man, this piece exemplifies Ingres's renowned technical precision, even in preparatory studies or intimate commissioned portraits. Executed entirely in graphite, the medium allows for sharp delineation and subtle shading, capturing the sitter's character with extraordinary clarity and minimal embellishment.

The subject, Henri Lehmann, was a prominent German-born painter who worked primarily in France during the mid-19th century. This specific portrait demonstrates Ingres’s characteristic focus on contour and psychological depth, prioritizing sharp, unwavering line over atmospheric effects, a fundamental aspect of the Neoclassical style he championed throughout his career. While the artist is celebrated for his large-scale oil canvases, Ingres’s vast collection of graphite portrait drawings frequently served as crucial records of friends, fellow artists, and important contemporaries. Even in 1850, when Ingres was seventy years old, he maintained a rigorous precision, using controlled parallel strokes to define the texture and volume of the sitter’s clothing and highly focused, clean lines for the facial features. This meticulous approach emphasizes the sitter's intellectual seriousness and status.

This historically important drawing resides within the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Because of its age and artistic significance, the work is frequently studied by draughtsmen and scholars globally. High-resolution images of this master drawing, useful for generating quality fine art prints, are often made available through public domain archives, allowing wider accessibility to the enduring skills of the 19th-century French master.