Saint Roch implorant la Vierge pour les pestiférés (esquisse)

David's Saint Roch Imploring the Virgin for the Plague Victims of 1780, painted for the Genoa city government during a plague outbreak, depicts the plague patron saint interceding for the afflicted in one of his most significant religious commissions. The painting demonstrates his command of devotional subject matter in the Baroque tradition before his Republican secular turn, and the composition's drama and sympathetic treatment of the suffering figures show his capacity for emotional religious painting alongside his austere public neoclassicism.

The sketch's rapid, fluid handling reveals David's working process before the final tightening of the finished composition. Warm flesh tones and atmospheric effects are established with broad strokes, while the saint's imploring gesture toward the Virgin is already fully developed.