Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00011072Phryne before Her Judges
About the Artwork
Known in his own time for large-scale paintings on historical subjects, Jacques-Louis David drew avidly to plan his compositions. Late in life, however, his use of drawing changed dramatically, resulting in works such as this pair. After falling out of political favor during the French Revolution (1789–99), David moved to Brussels in exile. There, he crafted small, enigmatic drawings of close-up figures. Phryne features a mythological courtesan charged with blasphemy, while The Prisoner is vaguer, with an unidentifiable man grimacing alongside a chain and oil lamp. David embraced this uncertainty, writing at the time that “I just threw down . . . the mad ideas that came into my head.”
Inscriptions
inscribed, upper right, in black chalk: L. David Brux.
Provenance
1977: (Adolphe Stein, Paris) by 1987-2013: Helen [1929–2012] and Albert [b. 1930] Borowitz, Cleveland, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art 2013-: Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history
Jacques Louis David: Radical Draftsman. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (organizer) (February 14-May 15, 2022) https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2022/jacques-louis-david-radical-draftsman. Nineteenth-Century French Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 20-June 11, 2023).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Jacques-Louis David (French, 1748–1825)
- Date
- c. 1816–20
- Medium
- black chalk on wove paper discolored to beige
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 13.3 x 19.6 cm (5 1/4 x 7 11/16 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- Gift in memory of Helen Borowitz
- Accession no.
- 2013.249
More by Jacques-Louis David in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00011072
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