Cleveland Museum of Art

The Prisoner

Jacques-Louis DavidLinkedCulture matchlcp-14631ff483cc

Date: c. 1816–22
Medium: black chalk on cream laid paper
Culture: France, 19th century
Department: Drawings
Institution: Cleveland Museum of Art
Object ID: 147526

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

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. 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.

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Provenance & credit

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Credit line: Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund
Provenance: 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