# Portrait of the Artist [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [DAVID, Jacques-Louis]() - Date: 1801-1850 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 81 x 64 cm ## Commentary 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. ## 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]()