Crafting the Neoclassical: Two New Drawings for David's \"The Lictors Bringing Brutus the Bodies of...

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Crafting the Neoclassical: Two New Drawings for Jacques-Louis David's "The Lictors Bringing Brutus the Bodies of His Sons" Author(s): Perrin Stein Source: Master Drawings, Vol. 47, No. 2, Eighteenth-Century French Drawings (Summer, 2009),

pp. 221-236Published by: Master Drawings AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25609740Accessed: 27-08-2015 20:42 UTC

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Crafting the Neoclassical:

Two New Drawings for Jacques-Louis David's

The Lictors Bringing Brutus the Bodies of His Sons

Perrin Stein

The genesis of the painting by Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825) of The Lictors Bringing Brutus

the Bodies of His Sons (1789; Paris, Louvre; Fig. 1), as well as its critical reception?which evolved in

tandem with unfolding political events in

Revolutionary-period France?have been the

subject of a number of insightful studies by Robert L. Herbert, Antoine Schnapper, Philippe Bordes, Alvar Gonzales-Palacios, and others.1 In

2002, the known preparatory studies were cata

logued and placed in chronological order by Pierre Rosenberg and Louis-Antoine Prat in their

catalogue raisonne of David's drawings.2 The subse

quent appearance of two previously unknown

studies, both acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (see Figs. 13 and 19

20),3 affords an opportunity to revisit the subject of David's crafting of this iconic composition.

The two studies that came to light recently reinforce what was previously understood of

David's artistic process. To create scenes drawn

from ancient history that were essentially novel

conceptualizations, often delving into the com

plex psychological core of the drama, David

would experiment with every aspect of the com

position, repeatedly tweaking the parts to deepen the expressive force of the whole. It is also clear

that he always kept close at hand the albums he

made during his trips to Rome (the first of which

took place from 1775-80) and made constant ref erence to them as he worked, trying out various

details and ideas borrowed from his careful copies of antique sculpture and furniture, even as his

compositions progressed to their final stages. The extended germination process that often

preceded David's major history paintings can

make it difficult to pinpoint when work on a spe cific composition was begun. Ideas around the

story of Lucius Junius Brutus had certainly started

to percolate in David's mind in the early-to-mid 1780s. A schematic sketch, made on the verso of

sheet 13 of Roman album no. 11 (Los Angeles,

Getty Research Institute; Fig. 2),4 has been dated

1780-84 by Rosenberg and Prat and tentatively connected with the Oath of the Horatii (1784;

Figure 1

JACQUES-LOUIS DAVID

The Lictors

Bringing Brutus

the Bodies of

His Sons

Paris, Musee du

Louvre

221



Figure 2

JACQUES-LOUIS DAVID

Brutus Vowing to

Avenge Lucretia

(?)

Los Angeles, Getty Research Institute

Figure 3

JACQUES-LOUIS DAVID

Brutus Ordering the Execution of

His Sons

New York, Morgan

Library & Museum, Thaw Collection

Paris, Louvre),5 but may well represent Brutus

vowing to avenge Lucretia. On his second trip to

Rome (1784?85), David was inspired to make a

haunting copy (London, British Museum) after

the Capitoline bust of Brutus,6 which, with its

intense focus on psychology rather than form or

gesture, stands apart from his other copies after

the Antique; its imprint can clearly be felt in the

features of Brutus in the Louvre painting. Philippe Bordes has also drawn attention to the fact that

Brutus condemning his sons to death was the sub

ject assigned for the grand prix competition for

sculptors in 1785 and that the architect Antoine

Francois Peyre (1739?1823) proposed the subject as one appropriate for David in a letter to the

Elector of Trier, Clement Wenceslaus, Duke of

Saxony (1768?1812) in 1786; Bordes also pointed to earlier pictorial treatments of the oath of Brutus

by Jacques-Antoine Beaufort (1721?1784), Gavin

Hamilton (1723-1798), Heinrich F?ger (1751

1818), and Wilhelm Tischbein (1751-1829).7 Lucius Junius Brutus lived during the brutal

regime of Tarquin, Rome's last king. To avenge the dishonor and suicide of Lucretia?who had

been raped by Tarquin's son?Brutus drove out

the monarchy and founded Rome's first republic,

only to find later that his two sons were embroiled

in a royalist plot to overthrow the government.

Adhering to his principles and following the rule

of law, he ordered their execution. A large com

positional study (New York, Morgan Library &

Museum, Thaw Collection; Fig. 3), dating to

around 1785, indicates that David had also con

sidered depicting this earlier moment of the story.8 However, in finally settling on the subject of the

lictors returning the bodies to the home of

Brutus, David opted for an episode that was with

out pictorial precedent and allowed an explo ration of the most complex and psychologically

fraught kernel of the story. In a letter of 1789 to

his friend and former student Jean-Baptiste Wicar

(1762-1834) in Florence,9 David would describe

the subject of his nearly complete canvas depict

ing the wrenching domestic aftermath of Brutus's

act as his own "pure invention."

Although it was not exhibited until after the

fall of the Bastille, the Louvre Brutus was a royal commission. Originally planned for the Salon of

1787, David had proposed to the B?timents du

Roi two subjects from Roman history, of which

an episode from the story of Roman general Coriolanus was chosen. According to Fernand

Engerand's interpretation of the surviving docu

ments, David subsequently changed the subject of

his own volition, without the approval of the

director of the B?timents, Charles-Claude

Flauhaut de la Billaderie, comte d'Angiviller

(1730-1810), although he did ultimately receive

payment for the canvas.10

The large number of surviving preparatory studies allow us to parse the development of

David's composition as an extended series of steps.

The schematic premiere pensee (Bayonne, Musee

Bonnat; Fig. 4)11 begins with the concept of an

isolated brooding Brutus to the left with the rest

222



Figure 4 ^"^Gflftft

JACQUES-LOUIS "V d^&^H|Hltt^^.

V,..^ _ i

of the family and servants forming a tight knot of

anguish to the right. David next turned his focus

to the figure of Brutus in two further studies in

Bayonne, searching for body language to express a combination of resolve and inner turmoil. In

one (Fig. 5),12 he experimented with alternate

positions for the right arm; in the other (Fig. 6),13 he arrived at the definitive placement of Brutus's

right arm and introduced the idea of an object in

the left hand, although the position of the legs would continue to change.

The order of the next two compositional stud

ies has divided scholars. Assuming that the one in

Bayonne (Fig. 7) was drawn first,14 it is notable for

the addition of the lictors carrying the corpses and

the transformation of Brutus's table into a statue

bearing plinth. The idea of using architecture to

divide the space into clearly delineated zones was

introduced, as was the idea of using motion to

express the mother's grief. As was often his prac

tice, David used intermediary figure studies^ to

work out the poses. On the verso of a study for

Oath of the Horatii (Paris, Louvre; Fig. 9),15 he first

experimented with the position of the mother's

right arm, and then, in a reprise farther down on

the same sheet, changed the pose of the daughter

collapsing to her knees to a twisting pose that

simultaneously expresses fear and morbid curiosi

ty. The composition study in the Lehman

Collection (New York, Metropolitan Museum of

Art; Fig. 8),16 incorporates this grouping, adds the

standing figure of the pensive man at center, and

uses hatching in the left foreground to place Brutus in shadow, further setting him off from the

starkly lit middleground group.

Having tinkered with the grouping in numer

ous reprises, David seems to have realized that the

pose of the mother?seemingly fleeing from her

Figure 5 (above)

JACQUES-LOUIS DAVID

Study of Brutus

Seated

Bayonne, Musee

Bonnat

Figure 6 (left)

JACQUES-LOUIS DAVID

Study of Brutus

Seated

Bayonne, Musee

Bonnat

223



y. I 2 t

ws . *4^ v~~~~

A~~~~l-}l

s: h t t t~ ab

A'~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~}

Figure 7 (top)

JACQUES-LOUIS DAVID

The Lictors

Bringing Brutus

the Bodies of

His Sons

Bayonne, Musee

Bonnat

Figure 8 (bottom)

JACQUES-LOUIS DAVID

The Lictors

Bringing Brutus the

Bodies of

His Sons

New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

r

Figure 9 (right)

JACQUES-LOUIS DAVID

Studies of the Wife

and Daughters of

Brutus

Paris, Musee du

Louvre, Departement des Arts Graphiques

224



sons's corpses?was emotionally implausible. In a

powerfully rendered nude study of the three

female figures (Paris, private collection; Fig. 10),17 David turned the figure of the mother so that she

arises out of her chair, reaching toward her sons as

their bodies are carried in. Both daughters are

now to the left, one collapsing, her arms stretched

upward, the other twisting toward the door, but

shielding her eyes so as not to see. Rosenberg and

Prat placed this sheet after the compositional

study in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

(see Fig. 12),18 but details such as the loose chalk

underdrawing and the overlapping of the hands of

the reaching daughter with her mother's arm and

chin argue for its anteriority, as does its superim

posed grid. In the Getty sheet, David added more

drapery, but the relative position of the mother

and daughters was already established (Fig. 11). A

lithograph by Jean-Baptiste Debret (1768-1848), executed in 1836 for the annual banquet of the

students of David,19 may excerpt this grouping from the Getty drawing, as was suggested by

Rosenberg and Prat,20 or may signal the existance

of a lost intermediary study, where David re

examined the group of women, this time in

ancient dress.

Discovered in 1984, the Getty sheet (Fig. 12) is a highly finished composition study in pen and

wash, signed and dated 1787, two years before the

painting was finished. With issues of poses and

placement largely resolved in earlier studies, David was free to focus on dramatic light effects

and the versimilitude of the antique furnishings. It

represents a juncture in the design process where

he clearly consulted his Roman albums. The alle

gorical figure of Rome, at whose feet Brutus takes

refuge, is closely based on a statue, originally of

Serapis, that David copied twice in the gardens of

the Villa Medici,21 and the chairs of both Brutus

and his wife are derived from ancient marble pro

totypes.22 One detail seemingly inserted at a late

stage is the Phrygian cap on a pole behind the lie tors. As a symbol of liberty, it is an odd addition to that zone of the composition as the fasces borne

by the lictors function more appropriately as

embodiments of consular authority. Philippe

Figure 10

JACQUES-LOUIS DAVID

Nude Study of the Wife

and Daughters of Brutus

Paris, Private

Collection

Figure 11

Detail of Figure 12

225



Figure 12

JACQUES-LOUIS DAVID

The Lictors

Bringing Brutus

the Bodies of

His Sons

Los Angeles, J. Paul

Getty Museum

Bordes has hypothesized that since the Phrygian cap is "transparent" (i.e., the masonry can be

viewed through it) it may have been a later addi

tion, perhaps inserted by David during the

Revolutionary period when the story of Brutus was seen as glorifying Republican ideals.23

In 2005, a second highly finished wash com

position study for Brutus appeared on the art mar

ket and was acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Fig. 13).24 The existence of mul

tiple composition studies with only slight varia

tions is frequently seen in David's graphic oeuvre,

especially in the 1780s, as an outgrowth of the

extended process of research and experimentation

underpinning the major canvases of this period.

Although both the Getty and Metropolitan sheets are signed and dated 1787, certain details reveal

the one in the Getty to be the first of the two,

namely the areas of "transparency" where late

stage changes were made to the Getty version in

the drapery over the table and in Brutus's footrest.

Both of these features (i.e., the drapery and the

footrest) were carried over to the Metropolitan's version without any hesitation or overlapping.

The changes introduced in the New York ver

sion have largely to do with the figure of Brutus.

His chair is now a stool with crossed legs with

lions' feet motifs of the type used by Roman mag

226



Figure 13

JACQUES-LOUIS DAVID

The Lictors

Bringing Brutus

the Bodies of

His Sons

New York,

Metropolitan Museum of Art

227



istrates,25 based on a relief of the Roman emperor

Marcus Aurelius that David copied twice at the

Villa Albani (e.g., Fig. 14).26 More importantly, David has placed a scroll of paper in Brutus's

clenched fist, a motif that appears in several copies after ancient statues of rulers in David's Roman

albums.27 Although a general attribute of a ruler in

ancient art, the paper in this case is additionally

fraught with meaning as it stands for the decree

issued and enforced by Brutus that treason would

be punishable by death. It thus visually underlines

the causal link between Brutus's role as consul and

the execution of his sons in the name of the

Republic. Finally, there remains the late addition

of the Phrygian cap on a pole leaning against the

plinth in the foreground. Grouped with the figure of Brutus and the statue of Rome, it is more log

ically placed, given its Republican associations, than it was in the Getty version. From its "trans

parency," we can see that it was added after both

the statue and the inscription DEA ROMA ("the

goddess Rome"), but before the inscription

!- 4 Figure 14 \ . VI

JACQUES-LOUIS ? . .

*

Copy of Marcus *** * lE^^r Aurelius from ̂E^^WV

Relief in the Villa \ ' ;.l v^Ee^ffiC^V

Albani, Rome fJmv^m fttl T^L Location Unknown .

S^tlti\ vfflPl^H

Details of the

inscriptions added to Figure 13

Figures 15 and 16

FUGAT...[obscured] S. REGIBUS ("after the

kings have been put to flight"). This detail (Fig.

15), along with the word liberte inscribed in cur

sive on the bonnet's strap (Fig. 16), led John Goodman to suggest that these elements (i.e., the

cap and the second inscription) may have been

added several years later?after Louis xvi's Flight to Varennes (20-21 June 1791)?since they reflect Republican sentiment, just as Bordes had

suggested in the case of the liberty cap in the

Getty drawing.28 Far from signalling the end of the preparatory

process, the two highly worked up wash drawings must have thrown into relief several elements of

the composition that still troubled the artist.

Several ideas for improvements are captured in a

small schematic sketch (Albi, Musee Toulouse

Lautrec; Fig. 17).29 The half-height wall David

had used to structure the architectural space in

both the Getty and Metropolitan drawings pre

sumably struck him as inauthentic and was

replaced, in the Albi drawing, with a curtain

attached directly to the pillars. The figure stand

ing alone at the center of the New York compo sition was moved farther back, beginning to open

228



;-louis

Brutus

Lautrec

up the space between the mother's outstretched

arms and her sons' bodies, a void that would

become a powerful element of the final painted version. Lastly, David completely rethought the

interaction of the mother and the daughters.

Perhaps inspired by a copy he had made in Rome

after an ancient group of Niobe and her daughter

(Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art; Fig.

18) ,30 he now showed the mother reaching for her sons with one arm and supporting her fainting

daughter with the other, expressing a natural co

existence of grief and maternal instinct.

The second recently discovered drawing

acquired by the Metropolitan (Figs. 19-20), a

double-sided sheet also related to the Louvre

Brutus, would logically be situated at this late stage of the preparatory process.31 Just as he had earlier

made a drawing of the three figures in the nude

after an earlier revision of their poses (see Fig. 10), David followed his epiphany for altering the

grouping of the mother and daughters?quickly sketched in the Albi drawing?with a careful

Figure 18

JACQUES-LOUIS DAVID

Niobe and Her

Daughter

Washington, DC, National Gallery

of Art

229



Figure 19

230



Figure 20

JACQUES-LOUIS DAVID

Study of a

Reclining Male

Nude (detail of the verso of Fig. 19)

New York,

Metropolitan Museum of Art

study of the arrangement of the three figures. As was his practice, he studied the figures nude, so as

to establish anatomical correctness before adding the costume. Pentimenti throughout the sheet

record David's quest to perfect the poses of the

figure group on the recto, and the continuation of

the contours of the legs of the mother and the

standing daughter, as seen through the form of the

fainting daughter, speaks to either the order in

which the figures were drawn or simply David's

methods of checking the placement of the limbs.

Most surprising is the use of red chalk, which,

except for a handful of drawings dating to the outset of his career, was never employed by David. The same medium was used for the

schematic sketch of a reclining male nude on the verso (Fig. 20), suggesting recto and verso were

drawn at the same time.32 Before its discovery, the

existence of the drawing had been known

through another lithograph by Jean-Baptiste Debret, this one undated (Fig. 21).33 Like the

1836 lithograph by Debret, the print has a caption that reads Aux Eleves de David; it was part of a

series made after the artist's death to be distributed

Figure 21

JEAN-BAPTISTE DEBRET (after

JACQUES-LOUIS

DAVID)

Study for the Wife

and Daughters of

Brutus

Lithograph

Paris, Ecole

Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts

231



Figure 22

JACQUES-LOUIS DAVID

Two Studies for

the Fainting

Daughter of Brutus

Paris, Institut

Neerlandais, Fondation Custodia, Frits Lugt Collection

s it

Figure 23

JACQUES-LOUIS DAVID

The Lictors

Bringing Brutus

the Bodies of

His Sons

Stockholm, Nationalmuseum

at the annual banquet held by his former stu

dents.34 The scale of the figures in the lithograph and in the drawing are identical, suggesting that a

method of transfer was employed. To judge from

its grid of creases and the way certain areas of the

design have offset to other parts of the sheet, it was clearly kept folded for a period of time.

The Metropolitan's red chalk figure study must date to early June 1789, just before the

sketch (Fig. 22) sent by David with a letter dated

14 June 1789 to Wicar in Florence.35 Describing in detail the still unfinished canvas (it would arrive

late to the Salon of 1789), David solicited his stu

dent's help in finding an appropriate antique

model, on which he could base the hairstyle of

the fainting daughter. Wicar was requested to find a bacchante in a similar pose and to send a sketch of

the coiffure to David back in Paris.36

The last of the known compositional studies

for Brutus, an oil sketch in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (Fig. 23) ,37 demonstrates how David, at a very late stage in the process, began to sim

plify the composition dramatically. The female

figure with her head in her hands just behind the statue of Rome disappeared, as did all the male

figures on the right side of the composition; only an old female servant or nurse, now with her head

in her hands, shares the domestic space with

Brutus's family. In paring down the number of

figures, David imbued the remaining ones with a

greater force of expression. He also made the

delineation between the male and female spheres starker. The lighting reinforces this dichotomy by

extending the diagonal fall of shadow on the right to behind the brightly illuminated figural group,

thereby heightening the contrast between the

light feminine side and the dark male side.

If the process of refinement generally followed a path of subtraction, there are nonetheless two

additions to the Stockholm sketch: a second, smaller statue behind the nurse, and the gruesome detail of two heads on pikes held aloft by the lie tors (neither of which was retained in the final

version). As the last step in the process, David

must have made large-scale, carefully modelled

drapery studies for the main figures, although only one, that for the grieving nurse (Tours, Musee des

Beaux-Arts; Fig. 24) ,38 is known.

Given the significant changes that mark each

step of the protracted genesis of The Lictors

Bringing Brutus the Bodies of His Sons, it is not sur

prising that a number of differences can be noted

between the final study in Stockholm and the fin

ished painting in the Louvre. The addition of the

shallow relief depicting Romulus and Remus on

the plinth near Brutus's knees was loosely inspired

by a relief in the Vatican that David had copied in

Italy39 and reinforces the Roman imagery of the

statue, both signifiers of the devotion to the prin

ciples of the Republic that guided Brutus's

232



Figure 24

JACQUES-LOUIS DAVID

Drapery Study for

the Grieving Nurse

Tours, Musee des

Beaux-Arts



actions. The basket of sewing on the table at the center of the composition was, by contrast, prob

ably painted from life, but its placement was no

less deliberate. On one level needlework demar

cated the domestic sphere, but the scissors in the

basket would also have been associated with

Atropos, the Fate who cuts the thread of life.40

Even small details were grafted from antique sources. The protruding red cushion on Brutus's

chair and the way his drapery falls over it forming a point relies on a similar detail in David's Roman

copy of a statue of Menander he had seen in the

Villa Negroni,41 and the arrangement of the blue

ribbon in the standing daughter's hair appears to

be borrowed from a profile of a woman's head.42

Special attention was given to the authenticity of the furniture. Brutus's sella curulis, or folding stool associated with Roman magistrates, which

appeared in the Metropolitan's composition study, was swapped out for one with a curved back more

suggestive of the domestic realm. The lion-footed

table of the New York sheet is now a pedestal table?a different design, but of similarly antique

pedigree.43 According to Etienne-Jean Delecluze's

memoir, first published in 1855, David's drawings after Roman furniture, as well as those of his stu

dent Jean-Charles-Alexandre Moreau (1762?

1810), were the basis for luxurious reproductions

by Parisian ebeniste Georges Jacob (1739-1814), commissioned by David to furnish his studio and

copied in many of his paintings.44 While

Delecluze is unclear on the date these pieces would have been made (he guessed c. 1789-90), his account finds corroboration in the survival of

a number of pieces matching his description and

with provenances that can be traced back to

descendants of the artist. Alvar Gonz?lez-Palacios, who has studied the antique decor in David's

paintings, has connected his drawing of a Roman

table45 to a reproduction in mahogany with gilt bronze decoration made for David by Jacob around 1788, just before the Brutus was painted, but after the Getty and Metropolitan studies, both

of which feature a different table.46 The throne of

Brutus's wife was likewise replaced with one of a

different design between 1787 (the date of the

Metropolitan's drawing) and 1789 (the date of the

Louvre painting), a change also apparently based on a three-dimensional intermediary David com

missioned from Jacob to be built based on his

Roman drawings and used as a studio prop in the

painting of Brutus.47

Thus, the discovery of two new preparatory

drawings for David's The Lictors Bringing Brutus the

Bodies of his Sons confirms and deepens what was

previously understood of the genesis of this icon

ic work. In a process of exploration and refine ment that extended over at least two years, David

engaged with the difficult and unprecedented

subject matter of his picture on a psychological level, exploring the implications of multiple

adjustments to the positions and gestures of the

figures, while simultaneously pushing its historical

verisimilitude by constantly turning and returning to his Roman albums. The practical value he

found in the many sketches he made after the

Antique between 1775 and 1780 is clearly illus

trated in how he arranged them in the so-called

albums primitifs on his return to Paris,48 when his

student sketchbooks were cut apart and assembled

into two or three large albums organized by source and type. Copies after the Antique preced ed those after Old Masters, which in turn preced ed landscapes and tracings. Within the section

based on antiquity, drawings were organized by

type: first images of men, then women, then

groups, followed by sections on ancient armor

and furniture. One can hardly overestimate the

importance David placed on details of decor as

seen in the luxurious reproductions he had craft

ed by Paris's pre-eminent ebeniste to aid him in

executing the final canvas. The authenticity of the

figures was no less important to David, and the

adjustments to their poses, clothing, and even

hairstyles also reveals a continual revisiting of his

Roman albums. The shedding of the late Baroque manner of his training and the crafting of a purer Neoclassical style was thus based on a steady recourse to antiquity through the lens of his own

first-hand copies, a process of care and delibera

tion freshly revealed in each new preparatory

drawing to come to light.

234



Perrin Stein is Curator of Drawings and Prints at the

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

author's note

In looking at David's drawings for Brutus, I have

benefited from conversations with Colin B.

Bailey, Philippe Bordes, George Goldner, Louis

Antoine Prat, Pierre Rosenberg, and Marjorie

Shelley. I would like especially to thank John Goodman for his time and patience with my

queries.

NOTES

1. Inv. no. 3693 (oil on canvas; 3.23 x 4.22 m); see Robert

L. Herbert, David, Voltaire, "Brutus" and the French

Revolution: An Essay in Art and Politics, London, 1972;

Antoine Schnapper, Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825), exh. cat., Musee du Louvre, Paris, and Versailles, Musee

National du Chateau, 1989-90, pp. 194-206; Philippe

Bordes, La Mort de Brutus de Pierre-Narcisse Guerin, Vizille,

1996, pp. 30-45; idem, "Autour de Brutus de David:

Commentaires anciens et modernes," in Bruto il Maggiore nella letteratura francese e dintorni: Atti del connvegno inter

nazionale, Verona, 3?5 maggio 2001, Fasano, 2002, pp.

247-61; and Alvar Gonzalez-Palacios, "Jacques-Louis David: Le Decor de l'antiquite," in Regis Michel, ed.,

David contre David: Actes du colloque organise au musee du

Louvre par le service culturel du 6 au 10 decemhre 1989, 2

vols., Paris, 1993, vol. 2, pp. 929-63.

2. See Pierre Rosenberg and Louis-Antoine Prat, Jacques Louis David (1748-1825): Catalogue raisonne des dessins, 2

vols., Milan, 2002. Drawings discussed in this article, with the exception of the two discovered after 2002, will

be referred to by their "R-P" catalogue numbers.

3. Inv. nos. 2006.264 (Purchase: Lila Acheson Wallace Gift) and 2007.450a-b (Purchase: Robert Gordon Gift); see

"Recent Acquisitions, A Selection: 2006-2007," The

Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, 65, no. 2 (2007), p. 35 (entry by Perrin Stein). For details of their media,

dimensions, and provenance, see Notes 24 and 31 below.

4. Inv. no. 940049, fol. 13 verso/j. Black chalk; 90 x 135

mm (irregular); see R-P 1154, repr.

5. Inv. no. 3692 (oil on canvas; 3.3 x 4.25 m); see

Rosenberg and Prat 2002, fig. 51a.

6. Inv. no. 2000-9-29-12. Black chalk; 142 x 109 mm; see

R-P 75bis, repr.; and Perrin Stein, with an introduction

by Martin Royalton-Kisch, French Drawings from the

British Museum: Clouet to Seurat, exh. cat., New York,

Metropolitan Museum of Art, and London, British

Museum, 2005, no. 65, repr. (in color), with comp. fig.

of the Capitoline Brutus.

7. See Bordes 1996, pp. 30-34, and Bordes 2002, pp. 251-52.

8. Promised gift to the Morgan Library & Museum. Pen

and brown ink, with brown wash, over black chalk; 416

x 584 mm; see R-P 76, repr. Although the Thaw draw

ing has traditionally been dated to c. 1787, Philippe Bordes ("Le Catalogue des dessins de David, par P.

Rosenberg et L.-A. Prat," review in Revue de I'Art, 143,

2004, p. 125) has recently raised the question of whether

it might postdate the Louvre canvas, as a revisionist proj ect embarked on during the Terror, reflecting a

Republican ideology.

9. See Rosenberg-Prat 2002, p. Ill, under no. 99.

10. See Fernand Engerand, Inventaire des tableaux commandes et

achetes par la direction des b?timents du roi (1709-1792),

Paris, 1901, pp. 138-39.

11. Inv. no. AI 1895; NI 518. Black chalk; 139 x 188 mm;

see R-P 90, repr.


see R-P 93, repr.


see R-P 94, repr.


see R-P 91, repr.

15. Inv. no. RF 29914. Black chalk; 354 x 259 mm; see R-P

68 verso, repr.

16. Inv. no. 1975.1.607. Black chalk, with a few touches of

pen and brown ink; 239 x 308 mm; see R?P 92, repr.

17. Pen and black ink, with brush and gray wash; squared and numbered in black chalk; 243 x 184 mm; see R-P

96, repr.

18. Inv. no. 84.GA.8. Pen and black ink, with brush and gray

wash; 327 x 421 mm; see R?P 95, repr.

19. See Philippe Bordes, "Dessins perdus de David, dont un

pour La Mort de Socrate, lithographies par Debret," Bulletin de la Societe de l'Histoire de l'Art Francais, 1979

(1981), pp. 179-84, and fig. 1.

20. See Rosenberg and Prat 2002, vol. 1, p. 107, under no.

95.

21. See R-P 509 and R-P 1332, the latter pointed out by Antoine Schnapper in Paris and Versailles 1989-90, pp. 197-98.

22. See R-P 711 and R-P 1338 recto. See also Gonzalez

Palacios 1993, pp. 944-45.

23. See Bordes 1996, p. 41.

24. Black chalk, pen and black and brown ink, with brush

235



and gray wash, heightened with white; 332 x 421 mm.

Provenance: Sale, Paris, Hotel Drouot (Collin du

Bocage), 7 December 2005, lot 71, repr. (to Katrin

Bellinger Kunsthandel, Munich, for the Metropolitan Museum of Art).

25. Sella curulis is the term for the type of folding stool used

by high officials in ancient Rome, including consuls. The

low rectangular foot stool was also a sign of elevated sta

tus; see A. T. Croom, Roman Furniture, Stroud, 2007, pp. 97-109. I wish to thank Joan Mertens for this reference.

26. Sheet from a dismembered album. Pen and black ink,

with brush and gray wash; 196 x 136 mm; see R-P 676,

repr. See also R-P 637, repr.

27. See, for example, R-P 747 and R-P 748, both repr.

28. Email correspondence, 5 February 2007 and 12 March

2009. For Bordes's comments on the Phrygian cap in the

Getty sheet, see Bordes 1996, p. 41.

29. Inv. no. 281. Black chalk, with touches of dark red chalk;

156 x 204 mm; see R-P 97, repr.

30. Inv. no. 1998.105.l.aa. Pen and black ink, with brush

and gray wash; 190 x 132 mm (irregular); see R-P 615,

repr. The original sculpture is in the Uffizi, Florence (see

Rosenberg and Prat 2002, vol. 1, p. 488, fig. 615b), but

Rosenberg and Prat (ibid.) pointed out that David would

have copied the plaster cast in the collection of the

French academy, housed in the Palazzo Mancini, Rome.

As I was kindly informed by Philippe Bordes (email, 23

April 2009), an even closer source for the position of the

daughter can be found in a figural group of an old man

supporting a swooning woman copied by Jean-Germain Drouais (1763-1788); see Patrick Ramade, Jean-German Drouais (1763-1788), exh. cat., Rennes, Musee des

Beaux-Arts, 1985, no. 146, repr.

31. Red chalk (both sides); 230 x 188 mm. Provenance:

Sale, Brussels, Pierre Berge & Associes, 23 May 2007, lot

194, recto repr. (to Wildenstein & Co., New York, for

the Metropolitan Museum of Art).

32. If the verso sketch is a copy after the Antique, the source

has not yet been identified. In the most general terms, the

pose anticipates that of the figure in the Death of Bara

(Avignon, Musee Calvet; inv. no. 846.3.1; see Rosenberg

and Prat 2002, vol. 1, fig. 127a.), which dates about five

years later.

33. Paris, Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beax-Arts, inv. no.

EST 10851. Lithograph; 360 x 274 mm; see R-P G9,

repr.; and Bordes 1980, fig. 95a.

34. A set of eleven lithographs preserved in the Ecole

Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts and bound in an

album (Est dir sc 21PF, fols. 51-61) includes ten sheets

bearing dates ranging from 1836 to 1845, in addition to

the undated print after the Metropolitan's drawing.

35. Paris, Institut Neerlandais, Fondation Custodia, Lugt

Collection, inv. no. I. 6402. Pen and brown ink; 101 x

110 mm; see R-P 99, repr.

36. See ibid., where the relevant text of the letter is quoted.

37. Inv. no. NM 2683 (oil on paper mounted on panel; 27.5

x 35 cm); see Paris and Versailles 1989-90, no. 86, repr.

(in color).

38. Inv. no. 922-306-3. Black chalk, with stumping and

white heightening, on beige paper; squared in black and

white chalk; 566 x 432 mm; see R-P 98, repr. A study of Brutus's wife's left foot and the hem of her dress (Paris,

Louvre, inv. no. RF 4506, fol. 33; black chalk; 188 x 135

mm; see R-P 1316, repr.) must also date to this late stage.

39. Paris, Louvre, inv. no. RF 4506, fol. 54. Black chalk; 135

x 188 mm; see R-P 1337, repr.

40. See Simon Schama, "David et les enfants de la patrie," in

Michel (ed.) 1993, vol. 2, p. 742. A different interpreta tion of the sewing basket is offered by Denise Amy

Baxter ("Two Brutuses: Violence, Virtue, and Politics in

the Visual Culture of the French Revolution,"

Eighteenth-century Life, 30, no. 3, 2006, pp. 57-58), who

sees the pattern of fleur-de-lys trim on the fabric in the

basket as evidence of the royalist sympathies of Brutus's

wife, making her complicit in the demise of her sons.

41. Album 7, fol. 4b; Paris, Louvre, inv. no. 26092. Pen and

brown ink, over black chalk; 190 x 151 mm; see R-P

746, repr.

42. See Album 7, fol. 12e; Paris, Louvre, inv. no. 26109.

Black chalk; 94 x 87 mm; see R-P 785, repr. The source

is unidentified. The "antique" coiffures of Brutus's

daughters spawned imitations in styling of wigs in

Parisian boutiques according to Etienne-Jean Delecluze,

Louis David: Son Ecole et son temps, Paris, 1855, p. 21.

43. See Album 9, fol. 12f; Paris, Louvre, inv. no. 26156.

Brush and gray wash, over black chalk; 110 x 99 mm

(irregular); see R-P 979, repr.

44. See Delecluze 1855, pp. 20-21 and 122-23.

45. See note 43 above.

46. See Gonz?lez-Palacios 1993, vol. 2, pp. 946 and 1002,

figs. 203-5.

47. See ibid., pp. 947-48, and 1003, fig. 210. In addition to

the two examples mentioned by Gonz?lez-Palacios (one

in the Mobilier National and one in a private collection),

a third example, in mahogany with gilt wood decoration

and ebony spheres atop the arm rests, was recently on the

Antwerp art market with Axel Vervoordt.

48. An extremely useful pictorial reconstitution of the albums

primitifs can be found in Rosenberg and Prat 2002, vol. 2,

pp. 778-830.

236



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