The Death of Seneca (David)

Painting by Jacques-Louis David

The Death of Seneca (1773) by Jacques-Lous David

The Death of Seneca is a 1773 oil-on-canvas painting by the French artist Jacques-Louis David, now at the Petit Palais in Paris. It shows the suicide of Seneca the Younger. With its Boucher-like assembly of gesticulating figures, it was his third attempt to win the Prix de Rome, but lost to a painting on the same subject by Pierre Peyron. Peyron's had fewer details and a darker colour palette and was closer to the 'antique'. He was not only David's rival, but also initiated the new classicism which partly inspired David to produce his 1774 Erasistratus Discovering the Cause of Antiochus' Disease.

## Description

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The Roman stoic philosopher, Seneca is shown having accepted the sentence passed down on him by the emperor Nero despite the fact that it was unjustly ordered. His wife, Paulina, pictured on the right, as she is taken away while unsuccessfully attempting the same fate, Paulina was prevented at Nero’s command once she herself was already unconscious.

After having his veins in his arms cut, an act reported by Tacitus as a “prolonged period of suffering” followed. To hasten his demise Seneca requests ankles to be also cut while his friend and doctor Statius Annaeus gives him a dose of hemlock. In events that followed the scene depicted in the painting, Seneca still alive suffering, is taken to a hot bath where he finally succumbs to his injuries.

Other figures in the piece include a centurion dispatched by Nero to witness the death and a disciple of who writes down the last words of the philosopher. These last words, as reported by tacitus in The Annals Book XV, were “You see,” he said, “that I am not at liberty to requite your services with the last marks of my esteem. One thing, however, still remains. I leave you the example of my life, the best and most precious legacy now in my power. Cherish it in your memory, and you will gain at once the applause due to virtue, and the fame of a sincere and generous friendship.”

The lavish Rococo composition is in contrast with the austerity of the subject set by the Academy for the Grand Prix de Rome “the death of Seneca as told by Tacitus”. The jury was not convinced by David’s painting awarding the prize to Jean-François Pierre Peyron and this failure was his third , and penultimate, Prix de Rome submission winning the prize the following year.

## See also

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* List of paintings by Jacques-Louis David

## References

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## Bibliography

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* Régis Michel and Marie-Catherine Sahut, David, l'art et le politique, Paris, Gallimard, coll. « Découvertes Gallimard » (n° 46), 1988 (ISBN 2-07-053068-X)

## External links

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* http://petitpalais.paris.fr/fr/collections/la-mort-de-seneque

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Jacques-Louis David

Paintings|

* List of works
* Portrait of François Buron (1769)
* Jupiter and Antiope (1771)
* Minerva Fighting Mars (1771)
* Diana and Apollo Killing Niobe's Children (1772)
* The Death of Seneca (1773)
* Erasistratus Discovering the Cause of Antiochus' Disease (1774)
* The Funeral Games of Patroclus (1778)
* Saint Jerome Hears the Trumpet of the Last Judgment (1779)
* Saint Roch Interceding with the Virgin for the Plague-Stricken (1780)
* Portrait of Count Stanislas Potocki (1780)
* Belisarius Begging for Alms (1781)
* Christ on the Cross (1782)
* Andromache Mourning Hector (1783)
* Portrait of Alphonse Leroy (1783)
* Oath of the Horatii (1784)
* The Vestal Virgin (c. 1787)
* The Death of Socrates (1787)
* Portrait of Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier and his Wife (1788)
* The Loves of Paris and Helen (1788)
* The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons (1789)
* Portrait of Madame Pastoret (1791)
* Lycurgus of Sparta (1791)
* Portrait of Philippe-Laurent de Joubert (c. 1792)
* Portrait of Madame Marie-Louise Trudaine (1792, unfinished)
* The Death of Marat (1793)
* The Last Moments of Michel Lepeletier (1793, lost)
* The Death of Young Bara (1794, incomplete)
* The Tennis Court Oath (1794, incomplete)
* Self-Portrait (1794)
* Portrait of Pierre Seriziat (1795)
* Psyche Abandoned (1795)
* The Intervention of the Sabine Women (1799)
* Portrait of Madame Récamier (1800)
* Portrait of Cooper Penrose (1802)
* Napoleon at the Saint-Bernard Pass (1800–1805)
* Portrait of Pope Pius VII (1805)
* Napoleon in Imperial Costume (1805)
* The Coronation of Napoleon (1807)
* Sappho and Phaon (1809)
* The Distribution of the Eagle Standards (1810)
* Portrait of comte Antoine Français de Nantes (1811)
* Napoleon in His Study (1812)
* Leonidas at Thermopylae (1814)
* Cupid and Psyche (1817)
* The Farewell of Telemachus and Eucharis (1818)
* The Anger of Achilles (1819)
* Mars Being Disarmed by Venus (1824)

Related|

* Marguerite Charlotte Pécoul (wife)
* Neoclassicism

Category

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Seneca the Younger

Philosophy|

| Dialogues|

* De Beneficiis
* De Brevitate Vitae
* De Clementia
* De Constantia Sapientis
* De Ira
* De Otio
* De Providentia
* De Tranquillitate Animi
* De Vita Beata

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Letters|

* Letters to Lucilius

Consolations|

* Seneca's Consolations (ad Helviam Matrem, ad Marciam, ad Polybium)

Natural
philosophy|

* Naturales quaestiones

Literature|

| Extant plays|

* Agamemnon
* Hercules Furens
* Medea
* Oedipus
* Phaedra
* Phoenissae
* Thyestes
* Troades

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Plays of questionable
authorship|

* Hercules Oetaeus
* Octavia

Satire|

* Apocolocyntosis

Other|

* Letters of Paul and Seneca (spurious)

Related|

* Senecan tragedy
* Stoicism

Portraits|

* Socrates and Seneca Double Herm
* Pseudo-Seneca
* The Death of Seneca (1773 painting)

Family|

* Seneca the Elder (father)
* Gallio (brother)
* Pompeia Paulina (wife)
* Lucan (nephew)

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