Each morning at 7:05, I amble bleary-eyed and slightly wobbly through the heavy wooden door of classroom K215. After a few seconds of fumbling with my dingy cotton tote and finding an empty space for the almost caustic and frankly unpalatable coffee I suckle each morning...I look up at her. I cannot fathom why, in a classroom full of modern whiteboards and "stainless steel" emulated pushpins, (neurotic would be an understatement for my classroom design sense) I find such solace and release in the decadence of this painting. Each morning, as I clear the piles of essays and scraps of referrals and post-its from across my dusty desk, I sink into the watery, soft, and cascading silk of her bodice and wish that fluorescent lighting had never been invented.
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
Princess de Broglie
1851-53 Oil on canvas
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
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