Andromache Mourning Hector

David painted Andromache Mourning Hector around 1782, depicting the Trojan hero's wife weeping over his dead body in a composition that combined Stoic gravity with intense emotional content. The subject was from Homer's Iliad, and David's treatment established the formula for the Neoclassical funeral lamentation that would culminate in the Death of Socrates and the Death of Marat: the dead figure horizontal, the mourning figure bending over him in an attitude that combined grief with reverence. The painting shows David's mature style fully formed before the great history paintings of the mid-1780s: the classical figure organization, the archaeological setting, and the controlled emotional intensity of the Neoclassical mode.

David arranges the scene with stark simplicity: the heroic nude body of Hector on the bed, Andromache's grief-stricken figure, and the sleeping child. The sculptural modeling and austere setting demonstrate David's mature Neoclassical style, indebted to Poussin and antique relief.