The Anger of Achilles

David painted this in 1819 in Brussels, where he was living out his last years in exile. He had voted for the execution of Louis XVI and served Napoleon as first painter, and when the monarchy came back he left France for good rather than recant. The scene is from Greek myth, the instant Agamemnon admits he has brought his daughter Iphigenia not to a wedding but to be sacrificed. Achilles' hand goes to his sword, the mother Clytemnestra grips the girl's shoulder in grief, and nobody quite looks at anyone else. David was in his seventies, working small and tight now rather than on the great revolutionary canvases that made him. He kept painting these classical subjects in Brussels until he died there in 1825.