Marius at Minturnae

Drouais painted this in Rome in 1786 as a student at the French Academy there, which showed it in its palace on the Via del Corso before shipping it to Paris that October. The next year his mother, Anne-Françoise Doré, put it on view in her own house in Paris. After his death in 1788 it passed to her, and later to his aunt, Marie-Jeanne Doré. The state acquired it from the aunt on 20 February 1816 in return for a life annuity of 1,000 francs a year. That same year his teacher, Jacques-Louis David, who had voted for the execution of Louis XVI, was banished and left for exile in Brussels, while the restored king's museum took in the pupil's picture. Look at the soldier on the left, sword lowered, pulling his cloak across his eyes.