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The Nurse and the Children of the Horatii
Jacques Louis David French
Not on view
In the fall of 1784, David returned to Rome to focus on completing his painting The Oath of the Horatii. There, as the last stage of preparation, he made, perhaps with the assistance of his student Jean Germain Drouais, large drapery studies for each of the major figures. Drawn from posed models, they combine black and white chalks to carefully record the fall of light on the folds of fabric.
The overlapping figures are rendered in contour alone and placed to block out the areas of clothing that would not be visible, an indication that the composition was already largely resolved. The grid of squares drawn over the study was a method of transferring the design to canvas.
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