After the Bourbon Restoration, Jacques-Louis David—compromised politically by his revolutionary vote for Louis XVI’s execution—declined reconciliation at court and opted for self-imposed exile, setting the stage for his final decade of work outside France.
David established himself in Brussels, where he continued painting and became a focal point for a small community of émigrés and local artists, maintaining a working studio rather than retiring.
In Brussels, David finished Love Leaving Psyche (also known as Cupid and Psyche), an important early exile painting whose mythological subject and altered handling signaled a shift from his earlier severe, public manner.
David’s Belgian pupil François-Joseph Navez produced a notable portrait of the aging painter in Brussels, documenting David’s continued artistic stature and his close studio circle during exile.
David created The Anger of Achilles during his Brussels exile, one of his last major history paintings, continuing his long engagement with classical themes while adapting to smaller-scale late production.
From Brussels, David sold major earlier canvases to the French crown: Louis XVIII purchased The Intervention of the Sabine Women and Leonidas at Thermopylae in November 1819 (reported as a combined 100,000 francs), showing that David’s market and prestige endured despite political exile.
By 1820, David’s health declined; contemporaries and later catalog accounts link this period of illness to his heightened determination to leave a final monumental statement painting in Brussels.
Around 1821–1822, David started work in Brussels on the large mythological canvas Mars Being Disarmed by Venus and the Three Graces, conceived as a late-career summation rather than a state commission.
From Brussels, David dispatched Mars Being Disarmed by Venus to Paris for exhibition at the Salon of 1824, positioning his late work against an art world where Romanticism was increasingly prominent.
David finished Mars Being Disarmed by Venus in 1824, widely regarded as his last major painting; it is now held by the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels.
Jacques-Louis David died in Brussels on 1825-12-29, ending a decade of productive exile in which he continued to paint, teach, and reshape his style outside France.
After his death, David’s remains were kept and buried in Brussels rather than repatriated to France; later, his grave monument and reburial were moved within Brussels cemeteries (notably to Evere in the late 19th century).
Jacques-Louis David in exile: Brussels years (1816–1825)
