Page "Jacques-Louis David" Paragraph 50

David created his last great work, Mars Being Disarmed by Venus and the Three Graces, from 1822 to 1824.

In December 1823, he wrote: " This is the last picture I want to paint, but I want to surpass myself in it.

I will put the date of my seventy-five years on it and afterwards I will never again pick up my brush.

" The finished painting — evoking painted porcelain because of its limpid coloration — was exhibited first in Brussels, then in Paris, where his former students flocked to view it.

The exhibition was profitable — 13, 000 francs, after deducting operating costs, thus, more than 10, 000 people visited and viewed the painting.

In his later years, David remained in full command of his artistic faculties, even after a stroke in the spring of 1825 disfigured his face and slurred his speech.

In June 1825, he resolved to embark on an improved version of his " Anger of Achilles " ( also known as the " Sacrifice of Iphigenie "; the earlier version was completed in 1819 and is now in the collection of the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas.

David remarked to his friends who visited his studio " this is what is killing me " such was his determination to complete the work, but by October it must have already been well advanced, as his former pupil Gros wrote to congratulate him, having heard reports of the painting's merits.

By the time David died, the painting had been completed and the commissioner Ambroise Firmin-Didot brought it back to Paris to include it in the exhibition " Pour les grecs " that he had organised and which opened in Paris in April 1826.