The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 24, 2024

The Prisoner

c. 1816–22

Jacques-Louis David

(French, 1748–1825)

France, 19th century

black chalk on cream laid paper

Sheet: 13.1 x 19.6 cm (5 3/16 x 7 11/16 in.)

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 1973.36

Catalogue raisonné: Rosenberg and Prat 393

Location: not on view

Did You Know?

Scholars have suggested that Jacques-Louis David might have intended this drawing as a portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte, who the artist supported. The former leader died a prisoner on the island of Saint Helena in 1821.

Description

This drawing belongs to a series of enigmatic sheets that the French artist Jacques-Louis David created while living as an exile in Brussels from 1816 until his death in 1825. Many of these untitled works present close-up views of expressive heads and were given by the artist to his friends. This image of a turbaned man next to a hanging chain and oil lamp loosely references David's painting The Intercession of Saint Roch (1780) from much earlier in his career.

1972
(sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, February 9, 1972, no. 13 bis, sold to Adolphe Stein, Paris and London)
1972
(Adolphe Stein, Paris and London, sold to Eugene V. Thaw, New York)
1972 - 1973
(Eugene V. Thaw, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH)
1973-
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Sérullaz, Arlette. “A propos de quelques dessins de Jacques-Louis David pour ‘Mars désarmé́ par Vénus et les Grâces.’” Bulletin des musées royaux des beaux-arts de Belgique 21, nos. 1–4 (1972): 107-116. Mentioned: p. 107n2
Dessins, aquarelles, pastels, gouaches [. . .] tableaux anciens et du XIXe siècle. Paris: Hôtel Drouot, 1972. Mentioned: no. 13 bis
Old Master Drawings Presented by Adolphe Stein and Lorna Lowe. Exh. Cat. London: H. Terry-Engell Gallery, 1972. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 9, no. 74
Nash, Steven A. “The Drawings of Jacques-Louis David: Selected Problems.” PhD diss., Stanford University, 1973. Mentioned: p. 241, n. 439
Lee, Sherman E. "The Year in Review for 1973." Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 61, no. 2 (February 1974): 31-78. Mentioned: p. 75, no. 65; Reproduced: p. 46 www.jstor.org
Coekelberghs, Denis and Pierre Loze. Autour du néo-classicisme en belgique, 1770–1830. Exh. cat. Brussels: Musée Communal des Beaux-Arts d’Ixelles, 1985. Mentioned: pp. 28, 189, no. 148
Schnapper, Antoine and Arlette Sérullaz. Jacques-Louis David, 1748–1825. Exh. cat. Paris: Musée du Louvre, 1989. Mentioned: p. 106, no. 245; Reproduced: p. 554
Noël, Bernard. David. New York: Crown, 1989. Reproduced: p. 48
Johnson, Dorothy. Jacques-Louis David: Art in Metamorphosis. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993. Mentioned: pp. 231-33; Reproduced: p. 232
Johnson, Dorothy. Jacques-Louis David: The Farewell of Telemachus and Eucharis.. Los Angeles: Getty Museum, 1997. Mentioned: pp. 30-31; Reproduced: p. 30
Lajer-Burcharth, Ewa. Necklines: The Art of Jacques-Louis David after the Terror. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999. Mentioned: p. 324, n. 94
Rosenberg, Pierre and Louis-Antoine Prat. Jacques-Louis David, 1748–1825: Catalogue raisonné des dessins. Milan: Leonardo Arte, 2002. Mentioned and reproduced: vol. 1, p. 352, no. 393
Bordes, Philippe. Jacques-Louis David: Empire to Exile. Exh. cat. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2005. Mentioend: p. 284, no. 43; Reproduced: p. 285
Johnson, Dorothy. “Lines of Thought: David’s Aporetic Late Drawings.". In David after David, edited by Mark Ledbury. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2007. Mentioned: p. 160
Padiyar, Satish. “Dispossessed: On ‘Late’ David." In David after David, edited by Mark Ledbury. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2007. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 310
Prat, Louis-Antoine. Le Dessin français au XIXe siècle. Paris: Louvre Editions, 2012. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 65
Crow, Thomas E. Restoration: The Fall of Napoleon in the Course of European Art, 1812–1820. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018. Reproduced and mentioned: p. 139
David, Jacques Louis, and Perrin Stein. Jacques Louis David: Radical Draftsman. 2022, 253. Reproduced; p. 253, No. 81.
Stein, Perrin. Jacques-Louis David: Radical Draftsman. Exh. cat. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2022. Mentioned and reproduced: pp. 253, no. 81, 258
Nineteenth-Century French Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 20-April 30, 2023).
Jacques Louis David: Radical Draftsman. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (organizer) (February 14-May 15, 2022) https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2022/jacques-louis-david-radical-draftsman.
Jacques-Louis David: Empire to Exile. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA (February 1-April 24, 2005); Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA (organizer) (June 5-September 5, 2005).
French Drawings from the Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 13, 1994-March 12, 1995).
Directions in Drawing II: The Human Figure. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 5, 1991-January 12, 1992).
Jacques-Louis David. Musée du Louvre, Paris, France (October 26, 1988-February 12, 1989); Musée National de Château de Versailles, 78 008 Versailles cedex, France (October 26, 1988-February 12, 1989).
Treasures on Paper. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 10-July 24, 1988).
The Lessons of the Academy. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 8-May 29, 1983).
Year in Review: 1973. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 30-March 17, 1974).
Old Master Drawings Presented by Adolphe Stein and Lorna Lowe. H. Terry-Engell Gallery, London (July 3 - 15, 1972).
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Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1973.36