models of rigorous realism to the ideals of purity, virtue and simplicity in Greek art. One of the other students of David, Étienne-Jean Delécluze, who later became an art critic, described Ingres as a student: He was distinguished not just by the candor of his character and his disposition to work alone ... he was one of the most studious ... he took little part in the all the turbulent follies around him, and he studied with more perseverance than most of his co-disciples ... All of the qualities which characterize today the talent of this artist, the finesse of contour, the true and profound sentiment of the form, and a modeling with extraordinary correctness and firmness, could already be seen in his early studies. While several of his comrades and David himself signaled a tendency toward exaggeration in his studies, everyone was struck by his grand compositions and recognized his talent. He was admitted to the painting department of the École des Beaux-Arts in October 1799. In 1800 and 1801, he won the grand prize for figure painting for his paintings of male torsos. In 1800 and 1801 he also competed for the Prix de Rome, the highest prize of the Academy, which entitled the winner to four years of residence at the French Academy in Rome. He came in second in his first attempt, but in 1801 he took the top prize with The Ambassadors of Agamemnon in the tent of Achilles. The figures of the envoys, in the right of the painting, are muscular and solid as statues, in the style taught by David, but the two main figures on the left, Achilles and Patroclus, are mobile, vivid and graceful, like figures in a delicate bas-relief. His residence in Rome was postponed until 1806 due to shortage of state funds. In the meantime he worked in Paris alongside several other students of David in a studio provided by the state, and further developed a style that emphasized purity of contour. He found inspiration in the works of Raphael, in Etruscan vase paintings, and in the outline engravings of the English artist John Flaxman. His drawings of Hermaphrodite and the Nymph Salmacis showed a new stylized ideal of female beauty, which would reappear later in his Jupiter et Thetis and his famous nudes. In 1802 he made his debut at the Salon with Portrait of a Woman (the