The Source circa 1856  Oil on Canvas. Louvre, Paris, France.

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867) was the most important French painter in the Neoclassical tradition during the first half of the 19th century and one of the most distinguished draftsman in the entire history of art.  Some believed that Ingres' portraits are his most expressive and moving works.  Though his detailed and vivid clothed subjects often become the key to the period fashion for dress historians, the nude portrait, "The Source" perfectly expressed the cult of the ideal woman as the 19th century saw her.  The absence of body hair seems to function as a veil that keeps the image part real and part ideal.