A Roman imperial throne

This counterproof was part of a now disbound album of early drawings after the antique. Some of the drawings in the album were sketched directly from antique objects, while others were copied from prints (on the album see Rosenberg and Prat, op. cit., p. 673). David used the technique of creating a counterproof to restore the objects to their original direction. This work can be dated to David’s first Roman sojourn, from 1775-1780, when he devoted time to studying antique works of art, together with Roman furniture such as beds, chairs and footstools. These studies became a repertoire of models that he later used in larger compositions. David inserted a chair nearly identical to the one depicted on this sheet in the compositional study for the Lictors carrying the bodies of the sons of Brutus at the Getty Museum (inv. no. 84 GA.8; Rosenberg and Prat, op. cit., no. 95, ill.) and in the sheet with the Triumph of the French people in the musée Carnavalet (inv. D4852; ibid., no. 129, ill.).