Autoportrait

1794

Oil on canvas, 32 × 25 1/4 in. Musée du Louvre, Paris

A private picture, plainer and rougher than the polished surfaces of David's public paintings.

Look at

The face is finished and the coat and background are not, so the handling is quick and visible.
He turns from his body to look straight out, with a hard, direct gaze.
A plain grey ground and grey coat, with warm red-brown lapels and the white cravat as the brightest shape.

Reputedly painted while David was held at the Hôtel des Fermes, September to December 1794.
Given by David to the painter Jean-Baptiste Isabey; his son Eugène presented it to the Louvre in 1852.

Image: Musée du Louvre · Public domain (faithful reproduction of a public-domain 2D work)