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Marius at Minturnae

Jean Germain Drouais French

ca. 1786

Not on view

A promising young painter, Drouais modeled his style after that of his teacher, Jacques Louis David. This sheet is a study for his painting Marius at Minturnae (1786), which was exhibited at the Salon of 1787, one year before Drouais’s untimely death while still a student in Rome. Like his master’s Death of Socrates (in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art), shown at the same Salon, Drouais’s drama is set in a prison cell. Marius, an exiled former general, is captured outside Minturnae, but the Cimbrian soldier sent to execute him is unable to carry out the task in the face of the prisoner’s forceful personality.

Marius at Minturnae, Jean Germain Drouais (French, Paris 1763–1788 Rome), Pen and brown ink, brush and brown and gray wash over black chalk — Due to rights restrictions, this image cannot be enlarged, viewed at full screen, or downloaded.

Title: Marius at Minturnae

Artist: Jean Germain Drouais (French, Paris 1763–1788 Rome)

Date: ca. 1786

Medium: Pen and brown ink, brush and brown and gray wash over black chalk

Dimensions: 7 3/16 × 9 13/16 in. (18.2 × 25 cm)

Classification: Drawings

Credit Line: Private Collection

How Chalk Drawings are Made

How Chalk Drawings are Made

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How Ink Drawings are Made

How Ink Drawings are Made

An illustrated explainer.

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The Met's collection of drawings and prints—one of the most comprehensive and distinguished of its kind in the world—began with a gift of 670 works from Cornelius Vanderbilt, a Museum trustee, in 1880.