In 1841, his picture of 'Stratonice,' painted for the Duke of Orleans, and now at Chantilly, was sent from Rome to Paris and exhibited at the Palais Royal. The reception it met with was highly favorable, and decided its author to return once more to his own country. Arrived in Paris, Ingres was received with all due deference; a banquet was given in his honor, at which painters, sculptors, and musicians united in showing him their admiration and respect. Delacroix alone was conspicuous by his absence.
A portrait of the Duke of Orleans was one of the first works executed by Ingres after his return, and before long he received the flattering commission from the Duke of Luynes to decorate with two great mural paintings the large hall of that nobleman's château at Dampierre. For many years this work continued, Ingres and his wife spending several weeks each spring as guests of the Duke of Luynes in order that the painter might pursue his labors under the most favorable conditions. The subjects to be portrayed were 'The Iron Age' and 'The Golden Age,' but an unfortunate combination of circumstances prevented the completion of either one. At first Ingres worked with enthusiasm, but as time went on his ardor cooled. Misunderstandings arose between the duke and the painter, and when, in 1849, the wife, who for nearly forty years had been his faithful and devoted companion, died, Ingres lost all heart to go on with the task, and the contract with the Duke of Luynes was canceled.
His wife's death left him desolate. He worked as diligently as ever, but his loneliness preyed upon him, and, embittered as he was by the struggles and privations of his early life, he could ill bear the loss of one on whom he had learned to depend for comfort and counsel. His friends all urged him to marry again, and accordingly, in 1852, he married Mademoiselle Delphine Ramel, some thirty years younger than he and the niece of one of his closest friends, and found in her a devoted companion who cheered his closing years.
In 1853 his most important work was 'The Apotheosis of Napoleon i.,' painted for the ceiling of a hall in the Hôtel de Ville, Paris, a work that was destroyed by the communards in 1871.
At the Universal Exposition held in Paris in 1855, the master, then seventy-five years of age, consented to exhibit a collection of his works. A room was reserved for them exclusively, and the impression they produced was such that Prince Napoleon, president of the jury, proposed an exceptional reward for the painter, who was named by the emperor Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor.
In the following year Ingres completed one of his most beautiful and most famous works, known as 'La Source.' Begun many years before, this picture is the culmination, so to speak, of his genius, the crowning-point of his task, his final word. After years of disappointed hopes, of struggle and of neglect, the artist now in his old age rested secure in the glory which was his at last.
After the completion of 'La Source' Ingres occupied himself chiefly in finishing many of the studies made in his younger days, and in painting replicas of several of his pictures. In 1862, when over eighty, he completed a large canvas, commissioned many years before by Queen Marie Amélie, wife of Louis Philippe. This work, representing 'Christ among the Doctors,' is now in the Museum of Montauban, to which the artist bequeathed it at his death, together with his painting of 'Ossian's Dream,' a collection of his drawings and studies, as well as marbles, bronzes, medals, vases, pictures, books and engravings, his favorite pieces of furniture, his easel, palette, brushes, and his famous violin on which almost to the last he played with unusual skill.
In the same year that saw the completion of his 'Jesus among the Doctors' an exposition was held in his honor at Montauban, when Ingres, who was present on the occasion, was greeted with an ovation by his fellow-townsmen, who presented him with a crown of gold. Not long afterwards he received news of his appointment as a senator of France—a flattering testimony to his genius and the highest dignity which had ever been accorded an artist in that country.
Ingres' last years passed peacefully. His great delight was in his work and in music. Early in January, 1867, he became absorbed in a plan of hearing in his own home before he died some of the music of the composers he most deeply cared for—Gluck, Haydn, Beethoven, and Mozart. A chamber concert was accordingly arranged, and a number of his special friends were invited to the festival, which opened with a grand dinner. Ingres—"Father Ingres," as he was called—was in the best of spirits, and, notwithstanding his advanced age, seemingly in the best of health. Although too old to himself play on his violin, he had lost none of his keen enjoyment of music, and on this occasion his enthusiasm was that of youth. He listened enraptured to the works of his favorite composers played by some of the most skilled musicians of Paris, and finally begged that before the evening was over he might hear the concerto by Viotti which, as a boy of twelve, he had played in the theater at Toulouse.
During the night following this memorable little concert Ingres was awakened by the fall of a burning log from the fireplace to the floor of his chamber. Instead of ringing for a servant, he himself restored the log to its place and opened the window to free the room from smoke. In the few moments this occupied he took a severe cold. A cough developed, and one week later, on January 14, 1867, he died, in the eighty-seventh year of his age.