Look carefully at Ingres’s painting of the Comtesse d’Haussonville and you realize that her right arm does not make any sense, it is coming right out of her rib cage. “It was deliberate,” said Emilie Gordenker, who was blown away by the painting as a college student in Connecticut. “He wanted to create this incredibly sinuous line that works perfectly … she makes this beautiful S-shape.”

This week the Comtesse is the poster girl for an unprecedented exhibition at the Mauritshuis in The Hague, where Gordenker is director.