Portrait de Louis-Michel Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau (1760-1793), sur son lit de mort

David's portrait of Louis-Michel Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau of 1793 commemorates the deputy assassinated the day after voting for Louis XVI's execution — a figure whose death David transformed into a Republican martyrdom in the tradition of his Marat portrait. The painting (which survives only in engravings — the original was destroyed) depicted Le Peletier's wound with the same graphic honesty David brought to his Marat, creating a visual argument for Revolutionary sacrifice as the highest form of civic virtue.

The deathbed format strips the composition to its essentials — the dying man, the sheets, the sword wound. David's austere handling and restricted palette create a secular icon of revolutionary sacrifice, the simplicity of means amplifying the solemnity of the subject.