How does The Death of Socrates elucidate its Release and reception?
David debuted the painting at the Paris Salon of 1787, the official art exhibition.  The painting received prompt acclaim among David's contemporaries.  The English painter Joshua Reynolds wrote that The Death of Socrates was "the greatest work of art since the Sistine Chapel and Raphael's Stanze in the Vatican."  The American minister to France, Thomas Jefferson, wrote that the painting was the best work at the Salon of 1787, and that the painting was "superb".  The painting was sufficiently successful that David showed it again at the Salon of 1791; it still attracted interest due to the changed political environment, as heroic stories from an earlier age fit the mood of the early French Revolution.An 1826 exhibition intended to raise money for the Greek War of Independence displayed much of David's work at the Galerie Lebrun, including The Death of Socrates.  The exhibition attracted much interest due to a backlash from the post-Bourbon Restoration royalist government, which disliked David and had refused permission for his body to be buried in France, albeit more for his Revolutionary-era paintings than Socrates.
Bourbon Restoration Greek War of Independence Paris Salon Joshua Reynolds Socrates Socrate French Revolution Thomas Jefferson Paris