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From October 30, 2009, through January 25, 2010, The Norton Simon Museum (Pasadena, California) presents a special installation of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’s stunning portrait of Comtesse d’Haussonville, 1845, on loan from The Frick Collection in New York. This portrait of the comtesse, a young woman known as Louise, Princess de Broglie, is the first loan from the Frick in an art exchange program between the venerable New York institution and the Norton Simon foundations.

This captivating, large-scale work has never before traveled to California.
“The Frick Collection is one of the world’s most acclaimed art institutions and was especially admired and respected by Norton Simon,” says Walter Timoshuk, President of the Norton Simon Museum.
Located on Fifth Avenue, The Frick Collection is housed in the former mansion of industrialist Henry Clay Frick (1849–1919) and is home to an internationally celebrated collection of Western fine and decorative arts, with works by Bellini, Fragonard, Gainsborough, Goya, Holbein, Ingres, Manet, Monet, Rembrandt, Renoir, Titian, Turner, Velazquez, Vermeer, Whistler, and others.
Comtesse d’Haussonville will be on view at the Norton Simon Museum from October 30, 2009, through January 25, 2010. Two preparatory drawings by Ingres will accompany the painting—one a direct study, executed around 1843 or 1844, which shows this same pose and his process in dealing with the folds of her elegant dress; the other a preparatory detail drawing for an 1839 commission for his monumental work, The Golden Age. All three works will hang alongside the Norton Simon’s portrait of Baron Joseph-Pierre Vialetés de Mortarieu, also by Ingres.

About the Comtesse d’Haussonville
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (French, 1780–1867) left behind a rich and varied body of work created during his long life. While many of his most known paintings are historical and religious depictions, his series of portraits, many of them of well-born, beautiful women, are among his most captivating. Ingres began his portrait of Louise d’Haussonville (1818–1882) in 1842, when he was 62 and the comtesse was 24. The picture shows the lovely young woman standing before a hearth in a well appointed room, a mirror on the wall reflecting the back of her head and neck. She wears an elegant, Delft-blue silk dress, its folds and details resplendent, a few pieces of gold jewelry, and an ornate red ribbon and tortoiseshell comb in her hair. One arm rests across her waist, the other is bent upward, and her hand is tucked under her chin. The comtesse looks directly ahead, and her slight smile and open expression invite the viewer into this lovely scene.
“Her contemplative pose, with hand to chin, is a motif Ingres revisits time and time again in portraits, history paintings, and surviving sketches,” says Carol Togneri, Chief Curator at the Norton Simon Museum. “The opportunity to have this beautiful portrait, as well as two working drawings that show his interest in this important detail, allows us to consider Ingres’s relationship and homage to antique art.”
“Although Ingres felt that posterity would judge him by his allegories, religious subjects and history paintings, it is his portraits - painted and drawn - that continue to mesmerize us today,” says Colin B. Bailey, Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator of The Frick Collection. “One of his most arresting is that of the twenty-seven-year-old Louise-Albertine de Broglie, comtesse d’Haussonville: daughter of a peer of the realm, wife of a member of the National Assembly, and future author of romantic novels and historical studies.
Through the sheer force of her personality-confident, thoughtful, and refined-d’Haussonville dominates this composition, which is a tour de force of verism in the rendering of dress, jewelry and fashionable accoutrements. Ingres worked intensively on this portrait during the first six months of 1845, and was delighted with its favorable reception, repeating the comment of a prominent politician to the sitter in a letter to his closest friend: ‘M Ingres must be in love with you to have painted you this way.”

About the Art Exchange Program
In 2007 the Norton Simon foundations entered a new phase in their history by forming an art exchange
program with both The Frick Collection in New York City and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Works of art from the Norton Simon foundations are lent to both of these estimable institutions for special viewings and, in return, masterpieces from their collections are presented at the Norton Simon Museum. The exchange is an opportunity to promote the Norton Simon collections to a much wider audience while simultaneously providing Southern California audiences the chance to view some of the world’s most significant and visually compelling paintings. The program launched in summer 2007 with the lending of the Norton Simon’s Rembrandt Portrait of a Boy (1655-60) to the National Gallery of Art. The first incoming loan was Johannes Vermeer’s A Lady Writing from the National Gallery of Art in fall 2008.

About the Norton Simon Museum
The Norton Simon Museum is known around the world as one of the most remarkable private art collections ever assembled. Over a thirty-year period, industrialist Norton Simon (1907–1993) amassed an astonishing collection of European art from the Renaissance to the 20th century and a stellar collection of South and Southeast Asian art spanning 2,000 years. Among the most celebrated works he collected are the Branchini Madonna, 1427, by Giovanni di Paolo; Madonna and Child with Book, c. 1502–03, by Raphael; Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose, 1633, by Francisco de Zurbarán; and Portrait of a Boy, 1655–60, by Rembrandt van Rijn.
The collection is particularly notable for its 19th-century works, including the Mûrier à Saint-Rémy (Mulberry Tree), 1889, by Vincent van Gogh, and a stunning selection of over 100 works by Degas. Masterpieces from the 20th century include works by Picasso, Modigliani, and Brancusi. Highlights from the Asian collection include the bronze sculptures Buddha Shakyamuni, c. 550, India: Bihar, Gupta period, and Shiva as King of Dance, c. 1000, India: Tamil Nadu; and the gilt bronze Indra, 13th century, Nepal.

Location: The Norton Simon Museum is located at 411 West Colorado Blvd. at Orange Grove Blvd. in Pasadena, California, at the intersection of the Foothill (210) and Ventura (134) freeways. For general Museum information, please call (626) 449-6840 or visit www.nortonsimon.org.
Hours: The Museum is open every day except Tuesday, from 12:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., and 12:00
noon to 9:00 p.m. on Friday.
Admission: General admission is $8.00 for adults and $4.00 for seniors. Members, students with I.D., and patrons age 18 and under are admitted free of charge. Admission is free for everyone on the first Friday of every month from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m. All public programs, unless stated otherwise, are free.
The Museum is wheelchair accessible.
Parking: Parking is free and no reservations are necessary.
Public Transportation: The City of Pasadena provides a shuttle bus to transport passengers through the Pasadena Playhouse district, Lake Street shopping district, and Old Pasadena. A shuttle stop is located in front of the Museum. Visit www.cityofpasadena.net/artsbus for schedules. The MTA Bus Line #180/181 stops in front
of the Museum. The Memorial Park Station on the MTA Gold Line is the closest Metro Rail station to the Museum, located at 125 East Holly Street and Arroyo Parkway. Please visit www.metro.net for schedules.