The Painter and the Guillotine

Jacques-Louis David painted Antoine and Marie Anne Lavoisier in 1788, in one of the most famous portraits of the 18th century. Six years later, Lavoisier was guillotined during the French Revolution's Reign of Terror, and David, now a member of the Committee of General Security, helped run the machine that sent him there. This is the story of the painter, the chemist who founded modern chemistry, and the unanswerable question of how much David's loyalty to the Revolution cost the man he'd once painted with such tenderness. Art as propaganda, complicity in the Terror, and a portrait that still won't tell us the truth.Buy Me a Coffee: ⁠⁠⁠https://buymeacoffee.com/versopod⁠⁠⁠Follow Me on TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠https://tiktok.com/@versopod⁠⁠⁠Email me: hello@versopod.comSuggested Further ReadingRoberts, Warren. Jacques-Louis David, Revolutionary Artist: Art, Politics, and the French Revolution. University of North Carolina Press, 1989.Dowd, David L. "Jacques-Louis David, Artist Member of the Committee of General Security." The American Historical Review, vol. 57, no. 4, 1952, pp. 871–892.Schnapper, Antoine. David. Translated by Helga Harrison, Alpine Fine Arts Collection, 1982.Centeno, Silvia A., Dorothy Mahon, and David Pullins. "Refashioning the Lavoisiers." The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2021. https://www.metmuseum.org/perspectives/david-lavoisier-conservation