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Having painted relatively few works during the Revolution, David worked with great energy while in prison, possibly using painting as an escape and as tangible evidence that he was a painter and not a politician. A pupil brought painting equipment and materials as well as a mirror which enabled him to paint his second self-portrait.Less agitated than his first effort, in this painting David stares out with a mixture of bewilderment and candour, brush and palette in hand, the tumour in his left cheek very prominent. (Because it was painted with the aid of a mirror, the swollen cheek appears on the right due to the inversion that accompanies a mirror image.) He appears younger than his forty-six years - a characteristic of not only his self-portraits but also some of his portraits.
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