Death of Marat

he Death of Marat, also known as “La Mort de Marat or Marat Assassiné” in French, is neoclassicism artwork at its best. 

The 1793 painting by Jacques-Louis David depicts the artist’s friend and murdered French revolutionary leader, Jean-Paul Marat. One of the most famous images from the era of the French Revolution, David painted it when he was the leading French Neoclassical painter, a Montagnard, and a member of the revolutionary Committee of General Security. Created in the months after Marat’s death, the painting shows Marat lying dead in his bath after his murder by Charlotte Corday on 13 July 1793. Art historian T. J. Clark called David’s painting the first modernist work for “the way it took the stuff of politics as its material and did not transmute it.”

The painting is in the collection of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium. A replica, created by the artist’s studio, is on display at the Louvre.