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The Death of Socrates
Jacques Louis David, 1787
Jacques-Louis David painted this in 1787, in the neoclassical style that took its subjects from ancient Greece and Rome. The story comes from Plato's Phaedo. Socrates was sentenced to death for corrupting the young and not honouring the gods of Athens. He chose to drink the poison hemlock rather than flee, and used his last hours to talk with his friends.
David shows Socrates sitting upright on a bed, one hand reaching for the cup and the other raised as he explains his ideas. He is calm. Everyone around him is not. The young man handing him the cup turns his face away, and Crito grips his knee. Plato, at the end of the bed, is slumped and looking down. In the background, Socrates's wife Xanthippe is leaving up the stairs.
The composition is almost like a stage set, with figures lined up across the front and a clear light. The painting is 129.5 by 196 centimetres and is in the Metropolitan Museum, which bought it in 1931.
From the museum record
| Artist | Jacques Louis David |
|---|---|
| Date | 1787 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Size | 51 x 77 1/4 in. (129.5 x 196.2 cm) |
| Museum | The Metropolitan Museum of Art |
| Credit line | Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Collection, Wolfe Fund, 1931 |
| Accession number | 31.45 |
| Licence | Open Access (CC0) |
Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art collection record. Facts such as dates, sizes and credit lines come from that record. The write-up above was drafted with AI assistance and checked against the museum record and standard references. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.
