Nude Soldiers Gesticulating with Their Weapons (recto); Two Drapery Studies for the Figure of Tatius (verso)
1796/97
Medium
Black chalk and pen and black ink, with touches of white chalk (recto) and black chalk, with touches of red and white chalk (verso) on cream laid paper, pieced
Dimensions
40.9 × 55 cm (16 1/8 × 21 11/16 in.)
Classification
drawings (visual works)
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
244916
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
This large, bold drawing is a preparatory study for the painting The Intervention of the Sabine Women. In the legendary origin story of ancient Rome, the city’s founder Romulus and his men sought to establish families by abducting the neighboring Sabine women and forcing them to become their wives. When the vengeful Sabines declared war on the Romans, Romulus’s wife and the other Sabine women threw themselves and their infants between the two armies and successfully stopped a war. The subject a...
About the Artist
Jacques Louis David · 1748–1825
Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825), born in Paris on August 30 to a prosperous family, faced early tragedy when his father was killed in a duel around age nine. Raised by his mother's two architect uncles after his mother departed, David overcame family resistance to architecture and a facial tumor that hindered his speech and studies at the Collège des Quatre-Nations. He began training under the Roc...