Madame Frederic Reiset, born Augustine Modest Hortense Reiset, and her daughter, Theres Hortense Marie 

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres made this portrait of Madame Frederic Reiset and her daughter in 1844, using graphite on paper. Look closely and you will see it is built almost entirely of line. Ingres has described the sitters’ likenesses and even the play of light and shadow through dense concentrations of strokes. It is the very definition of ‘drawing’ as a skilled practice, a tour-de-force of hand and eye coordination. Yet it is also important to note that these were luxury goods. Paper, then as now, was a mass-produced commodity. But this kind of portraiture wasn’t made available to everyone. Rather, it was an exclusive practice available only to those with the means to commission it. Ingres has given us a bravura display of his own skill, but also a glimpse into the economics of artmaking. The intensive labor is not just Ingres's, but the papermakers’ as well.