Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Paris and Helen
Jacques Louis David French
Not on view
Painted for the king’s younger brother, the comte d’Artois, The Loves of Paris and Helen is dated 1788— the year before the storming of the Bastille (the royal fortress and prison in Paris), one of the events leading to the downfall of the French monarchy.
Reflecting the tastes of his patron, David placed the besotted young lovers in an elegant interior, a composition he had developed in a series of ink and wash drawings. This oil sketch anticipates the luminous effect of the finished canvas, although David would go on to change the colors of many individual areas.
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