# Deputies swearing oaths [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [DAVID, Jacques-Louis]() - Date: 1801-1850 - Technique: Pen, ink and wash with black chalk, 490 x 600 mm ## Commentary Such an ambitious project as The Oath of the Tennis Court required an enormous amount of preliminary work and David filled two sketchbooks and many individual sheets with details and figure studies. He went to Versailles and drew the empty tennis court, and experimented with the poses of the deputies. As he had not witnessed the oath, he wrote little notes on his sketches to remind himself of how characters should appear, and which small but telling details to include: 'do not forget to show the deputies moved to tears and holding their hands to their eyes', 'remember to show the dust that was raised by the movement of the action' and 'remember the bell' \(used not very successfully by Bailly to call the noisy and animated deputies to order\). David saw the oath as a modern and greatly expanded version of the Horatii and the deputies became the equivalents of the heroes of antiquity. ## Related artworks - [Allegory of the French People Offering the Crown and Sceptre to the King]() - [Andromache Mourning Hector]() - [Anne-Marie-Louise Thélusson, Comtesse de Sorcy]() - [Antiochus and Stratonica]() - [Belisarius Receiving Alms]() - [Bonaparte, Calm on a Fiery Steed, Crossing the Alps \(detail\)]() - [Bonaparte, Calm on a Fiery Steed, Crossing the Alps]() - [Brutus]() - [Christ on the Cross]() - [Consecration of the Emperor Napoleon I and Coronation of the Empress Josephine]() - [Consecration of the Emperor Napoleon I \(detail\)]() - [Consecration of the Emperor Napoleon I \(detail\)]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()