Saint Roch interceding with the Virgin

David painted Saint Roch Interceding with the Virgin around 1780, an early religious commission demonstrating his engagement with sacred subject matter before his complete focus on classical antiquity. Saint Roch, the patron saint of plague victims, was a subject with particular relevance to Marseille — the city for which the painting was intended — which had experienced devastating plague epidemics. David's treatment combines the religious content with the emerging Neoclassical severity of his developing style: the figures are already more classically organized and anatomically rigorous than the Rococo treatment the same subject would have received a decade earlier.

David renders the ascending figure of St. Roch with dramatic foreshortening and luminous coloring, showing the influence of Italian Baroque ceiling painting. The composition combines devotional intensity with the anatomical precision that would define his Neoclassical work.