David, Louis, a French historical painter, born in Paris; studied in Rome and settled in Paris; was carried away with the Revolution; joined the Jacobin Club, swore eternal friendship with Robespierre; designed “a statue of Nature with two mammelles spouting out water” for the deputes to drink to, and another of the sovereign people, “high as Salisbury steeple”; was sentenced to the guillotine, but escaped out of regard for his merit as an artist; appointed first painter by Napoleon, but on the Restoration was banished and went to Brussels, where he died; among his paintings are “The Oath of the Horatii,” “The Rape of the Sabines,” “The Death of Socrates,” and “The Coronation of Napoleon” (1748‒1825).
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
David, King of Israel * David d'Angers