Jean-Paul Marat, a radical journalist of the French Revolution, was stabbed in his bath in 1793 by Charlotte Corday, a young woman who blamed him for the Terror. His friend David painted him within months.

David made him a martyr. The pose recalls Christ taken down from the cross. Look at the letter Marat still holds, from his murderer, and the crate he used as a desk, inscribed “To Marat, David”.