The Intervention of the Sabine Women

The Intervention of the Sabine Women (Les Sabines) is a monumental oil on canvas by Jacques-Louis David, completed in 1799 and measuring 3.85 × 5.22 m; it hangs in the Louvre, Paris (INV 3691).

David undertook the picture without any public or private commission. The idea took shape while he was imprisoned in the Luxembourg as a supporter of Robespierre after the fall of the Terror, and a popular account links it to a visit from his estranged wife Charlotte. He began serious work in the autumn of 1795 and in February 1796 was given one of the Louvre's restoration studios to paint it. Its theme, love halting a war and protecting children, was read as a plea for the French to reconcile after the bloodshed of the Revolution, and David conceived it as a sequel to Poussin's Rape of the Sabine Women.

The story follows the abduction of the Sabine women by the first Romans. When the Sabines under Titus Tatius attacked Rome, Hersilia, Romulus's wife and Tatius's daughter, threw herself between husband and father, with other women and their infants around her. Romulus is about to hurl his spear but hesitates. Behind them rises the Tarpeian Rock, named after the Vestal who betrayed the citadel. David blended the looks of Parisian society women with classical sculpture: Aurore de Bellegarde is said to have posed for Hersilia and her sister Adèle for the kneeling woman beside her. The nudity of the warriors was explained in a pamphlet David wrote for the exhibition.

It was shown from 21 December 1799 in a former Academy room at the Louvre, in front of a large mirror, at a paid exhibition. It reportedly drew about 50,000 paying visitors and 66,000 francs in receipts. The women's light gowns are credited with encouraging a fashion for antique-style dresses. In 1805 the canvas moved with David to his studio in the former Collège de Cluny, and in December 1819 Louis XVIII bought it together with Leonidas at Thermopylae for 100,000 francs; it entered the Louvre in 1826.