Man and Woman, ca. 1817

During the French Revolution and the Empire, Jacques-Louis David put his work at the service of Maximilien de Robespierre and Napoleon respectively. His love for grandiose, reasoned and balanced compositions lends itself extremely well to propaganda purposes. But this controversial theme makes Paris a dangerous place for David after the restoration of the monarchy and forces him to move to Brussels. David's Brussels period heralds strong stylistic changes. His colouring becomes more intense and the attempt to combine the ideal with the realistic more striking. A few weeks before his death, Jacques-Louis David donated four drawings to the Société Royale des Beaux-Arts in Ghent (Museum of Fine Arts Ghent, inv. 1933-E-1 to 1933-3-4). The artist has previously exhibited twice in the Ghent City Hall, at exhibitions organised by the circle. The chalk drawings illustrate David's late style, which re-actualises Antiquity in a more realistic representation. Typical are the heavy modelling and the accent on relief and shadows. For this drawing, David possibly drew inspiration from the mythological story of Phaedra and Hippolytus.