Where can you see Jacques-Louis David in New York?

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art: The Death of Socrates and Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier and His Wife. Museums move and lend their works, so check before a special journey.

What is Jacques-Louis David's most famous work in New York?

The Death of Socrates, of 1787, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Condemned by Athens, the philosopher reaches for the cup of hemlock without looking at it, still talking, one finger raised, while his followers weep. Plato, who was not there, sits at the foot of the bed.

When and where was Jacques-Louis David born?

On 30 August 1748, at Paris, France. Jacques-Louis David died on 29 December 1825, at Brussels, Belgium, aged about 77.

What is Jacques-Louis David known for?

The Death of Socrates was shown at the Paris Salon of 1787. The portrait of the Lavoisiers was kept from the Salon of 1789 for political reasons. Lavoisier was guillotined six years after he sat for it. Jacques-Louis David was a French painter, of Neoclassicism.

Painter, 1748 to 1825

Jacques-Louis David

David's huge canvases of the Revolution and of Napoleon never left France. The two paintings of his in New York are from just before, and are among the finest he made.

Born: 1748, Paris, France
Died: 1825, Brussels, Belgium
Movement: Neoclassicism
In New York: 2 works in 1 museum

Where to see Jacques-Louis David in New York

Each work with the museum it hangs in. Museums move and lend their works, so check before a special journey.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art2 works

The Death of Socrates
1787
Condemned by Athens, the philosopher reaches for the cup of hemlock without looking at it, still talking, one finger raised, while his followers weep. Plato, who was not there, sits at the foot of the bed.
Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier and His Wife
1788
The founder of modern chemistry at his desk among his instruments, looking up at his wife, who was his collaborator and David's pupil. It is more than two and a half metres high.

The life of Jacques-Louis David

Jacques-Louis David was born in Paris in 1748 and formed his severe style in Rome. In the 1780s he was the most admired painter in France, and his pictures of Greek and Roman virtue were read as a rebuke to the court. He voted for the death of the king, painted the Revolution's martyrs, and later became the painter of Napoleon.

The Metropolitan Museum bought The Death of Socrates in 1931. The portrait of Antoine Lavoisier and Marie-Anne Paulze came to it in 1977: it had belonged for half a century to the Rockefeller Institute, to which John D. Rockefeller had given it.

What to know

The Death of Socrates was shown at the Paris Salon of 1787
The portrait of the Lavoisiers was kept from the Salon of 1789 for political reasons
Lavoisier was guillotined six years after he sat for it

Born: 30 August 1748, Paris, France
Died: 29 December 1825, Brussels, Belgium