DAVID, Jacques-Louis
(b. 1748, Paris, d. 1825, Bruxelles)

The Intervention of the Sabine Women (detail)

1799
Oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre, Paris

For the first time in a history painting by David, the central figure is a woman, Hersilia, who forces herself between Romulus, her husband, on the right, and the Sabine Tatius, her father, on the left. Other women cling to the warriors and place themselves and their children between the opposing groups.