Knights Hospitaller of St. John of Jerusalem

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, a Neoclassical painter, is a recognized chef d'école who teaches with authority and wisdom while working steadily.

From 1826 to 1834, his studio has been thronged, and the critics have come to regard Ingres as the standard-bearer of classicism against the romantic school—a role he relishes.

The paintings, primarily portraits, that he had sent to the Salon in 1827 and 1833 had been well received.

The portrait of Louis-François Bertin (1832) had been a particular success with the public, who find its realism spellbinding, although some of the critics find its naturalism vulgar and its coloring drab.

The thin-skinned artist is outraged, however, by the criticism of his ambitious canvas of the Martyrdom of Saint Symphorien (cathedral of Autun), shown in the Salon of 1834.

Resentful and disgusted, Ingres resolves never again to work for the public, and gladly avails himself of the opportunity to return to Rome, as director of the École de France, in the room of Horace Vernet.

Here, although the time he spends in administrative duties is to slow the flow of paintings from his brush, he will paint Antiochus and Stratonice (executed for Louis-Philippe, duc d'Orléans), Portrait of Luigi Cherubini, and the Odalisque with Slave, among other works.

A man profoundly respectful of the past, he has assumed the role of a guardian of academic orthodoxy against the ascendant Romantic style represented by his nemesis Delacroix.

The fast-declining Knights of Malta have been without a grand master since 1805; Pope Leo XIII has the Order’s headquarters moved to Rome in 1834.