Circle of Jacques-Louis David, French 1748-1825- The Death of Seneca;...

Circle of Jacques-Louis David,
French 1748-1825-

The Death of Seneca;

oil on panel, 85 x 132 cm.

Provenance:
Private Collection, UK.

Note:
The present work depicts the death of Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger (c.4 BC-65 AD) as described by Tacitus in the Annals (XV, 60-64). Emperor Nero, who stands on the left wearing royal attire and surrounded by his centurions, points to Seneca, having accused him of conspiring against him and subsequently condemning him to death. Opting for suicide instead, Seneca has cut his wrists and ankles, and has immersed himself into a hot basin of water to accelerate the process. The figure of Seneca, here shown surrounded by his pupils, draws inspiration from the antique Roman sculpture ‘The Dying Seneca’, held in the Galleria Borghese in Rome, which Rubens presumably also borrowed from in his version of the subject in oils, held at the Prado Museum in Spain. David famously treated the subject in 1773, which is today held at the Petit Palais in Paris. Certainly Neo-Classical in style, the present work recalls similarly symmetrical compositions of the likes of the ‘Judgment of the Horatii’ by David and ‘The Death of Julius Caesar’ by Vincenzo Camuccini (1771-1844).