What painting by Ingres depicts a reclining odalisque with an elongated back?

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’s La Grande Odalisque depicts a reclining odalisque with an intentionally elongated back.

Ingres painted the oil-on-canvas work in 1814 for Caroline Murat, the sister of Napoleon I and queen consort of Naples. The commission was not ultimately paid because the fall of Napoleon’s empire disrupted Murat’s position and finances. The painting is now displayed in the Louvre’s Denon wing.

Its title refers to an odalisque, a woman associated with service in an Ottoman sultan’s harem. Ingres surrounded the nude figure with orientalist details such as a fan, jewelry, a turban, and rich textiles, creating an imagined Eastern interior rather than a documentary scene.

The extended back is one of the painting’s most famous distortions. Art historians have noted that Ingres added several vertebrae beyond normal anatomy, sacrificing realism for elegant line and sensual form. The work was criticized when shown at the 1819 Paris Salon, but it later became a defining example of Ingres’s blend of Neoclassical discipline and Romantic exoticism.