Oath of the Horatii pupil Jean-Germaine Drouais who had himself recently won the Prix de Rome. Ultimately, David's picture manifests a progressive outlook, deeply influenced by Enlightenment ideas, that eventually contributed to the overthrow of the monarchy. As the French Revolution approached, paintings increasingly referred to the loyalty to the state rather than the family or the church. Painted five years before the Revolution, the "Oath of the Horatii" reflects the political tensions of the period. In 1789, David painted "The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons", a picture that was also a royal commission. Shortly afterward, the king went up
The Tennis Court Oath (David) as a deputy himself to complete his sketch for the painting and French political life was no longer conducive to the work – Mirabeau, one of the heroes of 1789, had been declared an enemy of the Revolution on the discovery of his secret correspondence with Louis XVI and was now considered as a traitor by public opinion. A large number of deputies to the National Constituent Assembly had been identified as enemies of the Government of Public Safety. David therefore left the work unfinished and the subscribers reclaimed their engraving from him. David's 1810 "The Distribution of the Eagle