Le Serment des Horaces

1784–85

Oil on canvas, 130 × 167 1/4 in. Musée du Louvre, Paris

The whole story sits in one row of figures at the front of a shallow stage, like a Roman relief.

Look at

Three arches behind divide the scene into three groups: the sons, the father with the swords, the women.
The men are built from straight lines and sharp angles; the women at right collapse in soft curves.
Light falls from the left onto the swords and the father's raised hand, against a plain grey background.

Ordered for Louis XVI for the Salon of 1783; David changed the subject and size, and showed it in his Rome studio in August 1785 before the Paris Salon.
Signed 'Romae 1784' but finished in July 1785; in the Louvre since 1826.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain