Intervention of the Sabine Women

Detail, upper right, standards of the Roman army; David's painting depicts a legendary episode from Rome's beginnings in the 8th century BCE. After the Sabine women had been abducted by the neighboring Romans, the Sabines attempted to get them back. David shows the Sabine women intervening to stop the battle raging beneath the ramparts of the Capitol in Rome. The painting is a masterful summary of the whole episode. Hersilia is leaping between her father Tatius, the king of the Sabines, on the left, and her husband Romulus, the king of Rome, on the right. David is using the subject to advocate the reconciliation of the French people after the Revolution. While he was preparing this painting, whose subject is Roman, David proclaimed, "I want to paint pure Greekness." He wanted to mark his transition from the severe, Roman style of The Oath of the Horatii (Louvre) with a new pictorial manifesto. Source: Louvre Museum [website]; http://www.louvre.fr/ (accessed 5/1/2013