The notion of ideal beauty exudes from this painting as Ingres deploys the purest forms of line and colour to compose a classicising image of silent sanctity. Yet, she is not presented in a frontal pose typical of Renaissance Madonnas. Instead Ingres paints her with a slight three-quarter stance that allows her head to incline gently. Ingres hints at a more sensual image of the Virgin and disturbs the purity of her features by lifting the eyelids and parting the lips. The more ‘palpable’ rendering of this portrait provides an archetype of the tone sacred art in France adopted during the nineteenth century.