Musées de Langres – Maison des Lumières Denis Diderot – Musée d'Art et d'Histoire

Originally from Langres, the painter Jules-Claude Ziegler studied under Dominique Ingres (1780–1867) and is best known for the frescoes he was commissioned to paint at the Parisian church of Sainte Marie Madeleine – aka La Madeleine – in 1837. Ziegler was a prolific and multi-talented artist. His output also included photography from the early 1840s, and glazed stoneware ceramics, which he made at the studio he founded near Beauvais.

The armoured woman crowned with laurels is an allegorical representation of Imagination. Ziegler based her on his Joan of Arc, in the apse of La Madeleine. Under the allegorical figure’s arm is a canvas with sketch portraits of Dante, Raphael and Michelangelo. In the foreground is an orb with the inscription “Imagination is the queen of the world”.

Ziegler’s clean lines, bold palette and masterful lighting effects led him to be seen as the leader of a new school indebted to Spanish painting.