Portrait de Charles-Pierre Pécoul

The man here was David's father-in-law. Charles-Pierre Pécoul managed royal building contracts for Louis XVI, and it was that comfortable court money that helped set the young painter up. David made this portrait in 1784, the same year he unveiled the Oath of the Horatii, the picture that made his name. He painted Pécoul and his wife as a matching pair, plain and sober, the older man in a brown coat turned to face us, one hand resting easily on a chair. Within five years the Revolution would arrive. David would vote for the king's death, and Pécoul would die in 1794, in the middle of the Terror.