Jupiter and Antiope

David painted Jupiter and Antiope in 1771, an early mythological work showing the god approaching the sleeping nymph, a classical subject that permitted study of the female nude within a framework of learned precedent. This student work predates by more than a decade his conversion to the austere Neoclassicism of the Oath of the Horatii, and it shows a David still steeped in the French tradition of elegant mythological subjects. He was studying under Vien at this date and about to depart for Rome on his Prix de Rome fellowship, and the painting reflects the smooth, sensuous manner of pre-revolutionary French painting rather than the sculptural severity he would later develop. The contrast between this work and his mature style illustrates the profound transformation that Roman study and revolutionary politics would work upon the most influential French painter of the late eighteenth century. The painting is now held at the Musées de Sens, a regional collection that preserves this interesting document of the pre-revolutionary David.

David renders the sleeping nude with soft modeling influenced by French and Italian prototypes. The warm palette and flowing composition reflect the pre-Neoclassical manner he would soon reject.