The Turkish Bath by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres was a French painter of the 19th century, also remembered for his love of the violin. He began The Turkish Bath in 1852 and completed it in 1859. The work had been commissioned by Napoleon III in 1848, yet once delivered it was returned to the artist only days later, for the scene had shocked the Empress.

The painting stages a harem of nude Turkish women seated on sofas. To compose it, Ingres drew inspiration from the letters of Lady Montagu, an English ambassadress whose writings recounted her visit to a women's bath in Istanbul and described the setting in scrupulous detail. The artist also turned to earlier sketches from his own career, notably his Valpinçon Bather. That figure echoes here in the woman in the foreground, nude and seen from behind. The theme of the bather was close to the painter's heart and returns often throughout his work. 

The work is intensely erotic, and that is what unsettled the Empress. It is not merely a study of nudes, as often appears in Ingres's paintings. To the right, in the middle ground, one woman caresses another nestled in her arms. The overall light is cool and subdued.

In the foreground, however, a single figure commands attention. Seen from behind, she plays a stringed instrument that resembles a lute. The tone of her skin sets her apart from the other women, and the contours of her body appear more sharply defined. The surrounding figures sit around this central woman, lost in thought. Every woman is rendered in a languid, openly sensual pose.

At their feet, in the very front of the composition, sits a small tray with tea. The modest size of the tray lends the nudes an even greater presence, almost monumental.

Finally, the circular frame chosen by the painter answers perfectly the curves of the figures, reinforcing the harmony of the whole. Ingres adopted this device in homage to Raphael, who used it often and whom Ingres revered as an artist beyond compare.

After Napoleon declined to keep the work, Ingres reworked it until 1863. It stands among the very last paintings he produced before his death in 1867. The canvas was shown publicly only in 1905, during the Salon d'Automne in Paris, which devoted a retrospective to the artist. There it captivated great names of painting, Picasso among them.

The painting entered the Louvre in 1911, following a donation by the Society of the Friends of the Louvre. It can be admired on the second floor of the Sully wing, in Room 60. 

• Where: Louvre Museum, Sully wing, [Peint] Salle 940
• Artist: Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (French, 19th century). 
• Dates: begun in 1852, completed in 1859, reworked until 1863. 
• Entered the Louvre in 1911, gift of the Society of the Friends of the Louvre. 

While you are there, take time for a few other icons of the collection: the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix, The Lacemaker by Johannes Vermeer, and The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault.