The death of young Bara

In the spring of 1794 the Terror was at its height in Paris, and Maximilien Robespierre wanted a martyr for the schoolroom. He chose Joseph Bara, a drummer boy of about 13 killed in the fighting in the Vendee, and asked David to paint him. David gave the story more feeling than fact. He stripped away the uniform and the battlefield and laid a bare, almost weightless body across the canvas, one hand still closing on the red, white and blue cockade of the Republic. The paint is little more than a thin brown wash in places. Robespierre was overthrown that July, the day before the festival meant to carry Bara's remains into the Pantheon, and David set the picture aside, where it has stayed unfinished ever since.