Les licteurs rapportent à Brutus les corps de ses fils

David began this in 1787 and put it on show at the Paris Salon in 1789, about six weeks after the storming of the Bastille. Everything at that Salon had to be cleared as politically safe, and a picture like this was read very closely. The subject is Lucius Junius Brutus, the founder of the Roman Republic, who discovered his own two sons plotting to bring back the monarchy and ordered their execution. David shows the aftermath. The lictors carry the sons' bodies in through the door on the left, and Brutus sits in shadow at the base of a statue, refusing to turn and look, while his wife and daughters break down in the light on the right. Painted as France was tipping toward revolution, its story of a father sacrificing his sons for the republic landed like a challenge to choose sides. Notice the basket of unfinished sewing the women have dropped, the ordinary work of the house abandoned mid-stitch.