David Anointed King by Samuel

Louis XIV's own inventory took this picture for a copy. The list drawn up under Charles Le Brun, the king's first painter, entered it as in the manner of Claude, while its companion, Cleopatra landing at Tarsus, bought from the same dealer in 1682, went in under Claude's name. The Louvre thinks the figures may explain the slight. They are stiff, and David's head sits awkwardly on his body.

Everything around them is grand. The prophet Samuel anoints the young shepherd, youngest of the sons of Jesse, under the portico of the family house in Bethlehem, and Claude built it as a Doric temple. Statues of ancient gods stand along its balustrade between orange trees in pots, Venus, Ceres raising an ear of wheat, Apollo with his lyre. The Bible mentions a sacrifice, so he added an altar, and on it he put a ram where the text asks for a calf. For Samuel and David he looked at Raphael's version of the scene in the Vatican Loggias.

This was the last of seven pictures Claude made for Cardinal Angelo Giori, chamberlain to Pope Urban VIII, who ordered it in 1642 or 1643. The date painted at the lower left has almost worn away. It probably reads 1643, while the Louvre's records give 1647.