# Marcus Aurelius Distributing Bread to the People [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [VIEN, Joseph-Marie]() - Date: 1751-1800 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 300 x 301 cm ## Commentary Louis XV had Marigny commission a cycle of paintings on the virtues of great rulers. At the Salon of 1765 Vien presented this painting. Diderot commented it: "The pose of Marcus Aurelius is not displeasing; it is simple and natural; but his face is without expression; it is truly unpained, without commiseration, steeped in all the apathy of his cult." Diderot's conclusion was that the painting was a "composition without warmth or liveliness, no poetry, no imagination.... they are just so many pieces of card cut out and placed one over another." ## Related artworks - [Greek Maidens Adorning a Sleeping Cupid with Flowers]() - [La Marchande d'Amours]() - [Lover Crowning his Mistress]() - [Portrait of the Architect Barthélemy Michel Hazan on Horseback in Mufti]() - [St Denis Preaching in Gaul]() - [The Sleeping Hermit]() - [Venus Showing Mars her Doves Making a Nest in his Helmet]() - [Venus, Wounded by Diomedes, Is Saved by Iris]() - [Women in Classical Dress Attending a Young Bride]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()