Jacques-Louis David, August 30, 1748 – December 29, 1825, was a French painter and the leading exponent of Neoclassicism. His career spanned the final decades of the Ancien Régime, the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Empire, and the Bourbon Restoration.
David studied under Joseph-Marie Vien and won the Prix de Rome in 1774, spending several years in Italy where he absorbed the art of classical antiquity and the High Renaissance. During the Revolution he served as a deputy to the National Convention, voted for the execution of Louis XVI, organized public festivals, and became the unofficial painter of the revolutionary government. After Napoleon’s rise to power, he became First Painter to the Emperor and produced many of the defining images of the Napoleonic era. Following the Bourbon Restoration, he went into exile in Brussels, where he spent the remainder of his life.
Among David’s many pupils were Antoine-Jean Gros, François Gérard, Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, and Jean-Baptiste Isabey. Through both his own paintings and the accomplishments of his students, David established the French academic tradition that dominated European history painting during the first half of the nineteenth century.
Self-Portrait, 1794
Oil on canvas
Louvre Museum, Paris
The Death of Marat, 1793
Oil on canvas, 64.9 x 50.3 in
Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels
Portrait of Juliette Récamier, 1800
Oil on canvas, 68.5 x 96.1 in
Louvre Museum, Paris
Portrait of Suzanne Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau, 1804
Oil on canvas, 23.8 x 19.5 in
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Madame David, 1813
Oil on canvas, 28.7 x 23.4 in
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
General Étienne-Maurice Gérard, 1816
Oil on canvas, 77.6 x 53.6 in
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Comte Henri-Amédée-Mercure de Turenne-d'Aynac, 1816
Oil on canvas, 28.3 x 22.1 in
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA
Portrait of the Sisters Zénaïde and Charlotte Bonaparte, 1821
Oil on canvas, 51 x 39.6 in
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Cupid and Psyche, 1817
Oil on canvas, 72.5 x 95.1 in
Cleveland Museum of Art
The Farewell of Telemachus and Eucharis, 1818
Oil on canvas, 34.8 x 40.6 in
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
Mars Being Disarmed by Venus, 1824
Oil on canvas, 121.2 x 104.3 in
Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels
Marie Antoinette on Her Way to the Guillotine, October 16, 1793
Pen and ink, 6 x 4 in
Louvre Museum, Paris
The Representative of the People on Duty, 1794
Hand-colored etching by Dominique Vivant Denon after Jacques-Louis David
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