Death of Socrates

Jean-Baptiste Joseph Wicar

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Born in Lille, Wicar studied art in the French capital, entering the studio of Jacques-Louis David in 1781. He accompanied David to Rome in 1784 and, with the exception of two brief periods, spent the remainder of his life in Italy. He achieved success as a painter of portraits and history subjects in the style of his master. He was elected to the Accademia di S Luca in Rome as well as academies in Naples, Milan, and Bologna. Wicar was also an important collector of drawings, building up a series of collections, one of which formed the core of the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lille. Here, a quickly executed compositional study in black chalk shows the ancient philosopher Socrates in prison, holding his chalice of poison and addressing a large assembled group of acolytes and observers. Steps can be seen in the arched opening at right and a diagonal line indicates the fall of light against the back wall.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art