Luigi Cherubini
1841
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres captured the famously grumpy Italian composer Luigi Cherubini in this striking 1841 portrait, showing him dressed in severe black with a bright red rosette pinned to his chest. The inscription floating above his head proudly lists his many titles and his 1760 birth in Florence. Cherubini rests his hand near his ear, a pose that might suggest he's listening to the music in his head—or perhaps hinting at the hearing loss that troubled him in his later years. Painted in the precise Neoclassical style Ingres was famous for, the work hangs in the Louvre today, immortalizing a man Beethoven once called the greatest living composer.
- Technique
- Oil on canvas
Location: Musée du Louvre, Paris
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