Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Socrates, 1787, oil on canvas 51 x 77 1/4 in. (129.5 x 196.2 cm)

The Death of Socrates is a 1787 painting by the French painter Jacques-Louis David.

It represents the scene of the death of Greek philosopher Socrates, condemned to die by drinking hemlock, for the expression of his ideas against those of Athens' and corrupting the minds of the youth. The painting also depicts both Plato and Crito, with the former sitting ruefully at the edge of the bed and the latter clutching the knee of Socrates. Socrates had the choice to go into exile (and hence give up his philosophic vocation) or be sentenced to death by drinking hemlock. Socrates chose death. In this painting, a red-robed disciple hands a confident Socrates the goblet of hemlock. Socrates' hand pointing to the heavens indicates his belief in the immortality of his soul.

This painting is currently on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York as one of Jacques-Louis David's greatest pieces of art.

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v • d • e Jacques-Louis David Works The Death of Marat  · Portrait of Count Stanislas Potocki  · Oath of the Horatii  · The Death of Socrates  · The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons  · The Intervention of the Sabine Women  · Napoleon at the Saint-Bernard Pass  · The Coronation of Napoleon  · Belisarius Begging for Alms  · Portrait of Madame Récamier  · Portrait of Pope Pius VII  · Leonidas at Thermopylae  · Napoleon in His Study  · Portrait of Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier and his wife