Socrates teaching his disciples
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Central to the composition, a seated Socrates points both upwards and to the ground. Beside Socrates are seated two old men, one of whom may represent Plato, with attentive and pensive standing youths. To the right of the composition, a standing figure, perhaps Phaedo, writes an account of the event. The large masonry blocks delineating the floor and walls indicate that the scene may be taking place in prison.
The Austrian painter Josef Abel studied at the Vienna Academy, where he was praised for his history painting. Encouraged by his mentor, Heinrich Füger (1751-1818), Abel was one of the first Austrian students to gain a bursary to travel to Rome in 1801 where he was influenced by Canova and German artists such as Christian Gottlieb Schick (1776-1812). His time in Rome reinforced his preference for classical subject-matter and this drawing was probably made then. The shallow pictorial space, stony setting and treatment of the figures are characteristic of drawings of classical subjects that Abel made in Rome (for example, 'Cato receiving his Sword', signed and dated 1806, Christie's, Paris, 27 November 2002, lot 302).
Abel treated the subject of Socrates on several occasions. The Albertina in Vienna possesses several drawings which relate to the Waddesdon work both technically and iconographically and date from Abel’s Roman sojourn.('Socrates before the Judges' (Albertina, no. 17286) is signed and dated: J Abel Roma 1803. I am grateful to Marian Bisanz-Prakken for supplying me with information about Abel's Socrates drawings in the Albertina). The similarities between the Waddesdon and Vienna drawings suggest they might have been originally conceived as a series, perhaps for engraving. An engraving of Socrates dictating his Will, which borrows elements from several of the drawings, was produced in 1808. As well as representations of Socrates before the judges and drinking hemlock, the Albertina group includes a representation of the philosopher in prison (Joseph Abel, 'Socrates in prison', c.1800), which appears to be a variant of the Waddesdon subject, suggesting that this may actually depict Socrates's incarceration rather than his instruction of the youth of Athens which caused him to be brought him to trial.
The government of Athens accused Socrates (469-399 BC) of denying the gods and corrupting the young through his teaching. He was given the choice of renouncing his beliefs or committing suicide by drinking hemlock. Refusing the opportunity of escape, saying he must not break the law, Socrates chose death. Plato gave his famous account of Socrates’s end in his dialogue Phaedo. Plato was not present, but repeated the account of Phaedo of Elis, one of Socrates’ students, who had witnessed the death.
The composition of the Waddesdon drawing differs from the Albertina version of the scene. In both Socrates’s gestures, pointing simultaneously to the ground and to the light, relate to his discussion about the nature of the afterlife reported by Plato. However, in the Waddesdon version Socrates’s features are more obviously based on snub-nosed antique busts of the philospher than in the Albertina version. In the Waddesdon drawing Abel created a simpler, narrower space for the figures, giving the scene the quality of a bas-relief. The bearded, seated figure on the right is based on traditional likenesses of Plato. While both of Abel’s drawings of the scene concentrate on attentive listening, the Waddesdon version includes a writing figure on the far right, presumably Phaedo, thus introducing the chain of witness and recorder upon which subsequent accounts of the event depended.
Bearing testimony to virtuous lives and deaths was central to the function of history painting and Abel’s scene pays homage to one of the most celebrated depictions of a Stoic theme. Jacques-Louis David’s 'The Death of Socrates' of 1787 was loosely based on the Phaedo as well as on more recent French versions of the narrative. The printmaker and publisher John Boydell had written to Joshua Reynolds calling David’s composition “the greatest effort of art since the Sistine chapel and the stanze of Raphael … [it] would have done honour to Athens at the time of Pericles”. It is not known how Abel knew David’s work, but the painting had already been engraved and his friend and rival Schick who had been one of David’s favourite students in Paris,may have showed him a copy (for engravings and copies, see Massard, 1806, pp. 155; Florisoone, 1948, p. 50). The stone slabs of wall and floor and the frieze-like arrangement of Abel’s figures, with Socrates highlighted and modelled by chilly light from the left and surrounded by his disciples, all subtly recall the French model. The two beautiful young men standing behind Socrates’s left shoulder are ultimately derived from the equivalent pair in the David. For his figure of Plato, who, according to the text, should not be in the scene at all, Abel conflated and adapted two of David’s figures and their crisply draping robes - the seated man in the foreground and the figure of Plato seated at the end of the bed.
Juliet Carey, "Theatres of Life", exh. cat., 2007
Dimensions (mm) / weight (mg)
434 x 592
Signature & Date
not signed or dated
Marks
crescent moon
Watermark
Inscriptions
Socrate instruisant ses disciples
Inscription
on mount, recto, bottom middle, in ink
1354 dess [dess in superscript]
Inscription
verso, centre, in graphite (Edmond de Rothschild number)
Exhibition history
- Theatres of Life: Drawings from the Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor. Wallace Collection, London 8 November 2007 - 27 January 2008; Djanogly Art Gallery, Nottingham 12 April - 1 June 2008.
Collection
- Waddesdon (National Trust)
- Accepted by HM Government in lieu of inheritance tax and allocated to the National Trust for display at Waddesdon Manor, 1963
Bibliography
- Juliet Carey; Theatres of Life: Drawings from the Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor; The Wallace Collection, London, 8 November 2007 - 27 January 2008, The Djanogly Museum and Art Gallery, Nottingham, 12 April 2008 - 1 June 2008, Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire, 2009.; London; Paul Holberton Publishing, The Alice Trust; 2007; pp. 185-187; Cat. no. 72.
Related literature
- Jean Massard père; Description du Salon de 1806; Paris; 1806. p. 155.
- Michel Florisoone; David: Exposition en l’honneur du deuxième centenaire de sa naissance; Orangerie des Tuileries, Paris, exh. cat.; David: Exposition en l’honneur du deuxième centenaire de sa naissance; June-September 1948.; Paris; Editions des Musées Nationaux; 1948. p. 50.