Ingres probably painted this picture as an idealised portrait of Benoît-Joseph Labre, who died in 1783. Labre had already become celebrated for his ascetic life, even though he was not formally canonised until 1881, and even then after much papal deliberation. Benoît-Joseph Labre (Amette near Boulogne-sur-Mer 1748 – Rome 1783) seems more like a figure from the middle ages than a child of France’s Age of Reason. Born poor, he spent the first half of his life making a continuous pilgrimage to many of the main sites in Italy and Spain, living off gifts rather than begging. By 1774, he was in Rome where he spent the rest of his life. Labre’s asceticism, which was taken to excess, earned him a level of notoriety, and on his death at the age of thirty-five a hagiography grew up as he was well served by an immediate biography by his confessor – G. L. Marconi, Ragguaglio della vita del servo di Dio, Benedetto Labre Francese, 1783.

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