The arrest of Charlotte Corday or the assassination of Marat – Original drawing.

Louis BRION DE LA TOUR (1763-1823)

Original drawing.

The arrest of Charlotte Corday or the assassination of Marat

Pen and brown ink, gray wash, watercolor, enhanced with white and gray gouache.

1793

Extraordinary drawing representing the arrest of Charlotte Corday after she stabbed Jean-Paul Marat, on July 13, 1793, in his bath at his home, rue de l'École de Médecine. The still bloody knife fell to the floor next to the bathtub.

The work is annotated in black ink, at the top, by Brion De la Tour: “Marat stabbed by the Corday girl”

Format: 210 x 260 mm

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The artist has organized his composition into two parts: on the right the murderess is arrested and taken out of the room; she will be executed four days later. On the left, Marat is lifted from the bath while his companion Simone Evrard is in tears at his side.

Brion de la Tour made an aquatint engraving in the opposite direction to the present drawing. This was announced in the Paris newspaper on 28 Pluviôse Year II (February 15, 1794): “ Not having been able to corrupt me, they murdered me .” The philosophical, literary and political decade of Amaury Duval described this engraving (with that of Le Pelletier) as being: “ of good composition and great effect. They are those which render with the most precision and accuracy the events they represent. »

Despite these assertions by Amaury Duval, it seems that the scene of the assassination is a little different from the representation of Brion de la Tour. Charlotte Corday had time to escape and was only arrested in the anteroom by the commissioner Laurent Bas before being taken away. The artist here dramatized the event by representing together the arrest and the dead Marat, removed from the bathtub.