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Secondary sourcePainting1786

The Death of Socrates (Peyron)

Jean-François Pierre Peyron · 1786

Jean-François Pierre Peyron's 1786 painting imagining the prison cell where Socrates drank poison surrounded by grieving followers.

This painting imagines Socrates' final hours in prison, shaping how later audiences pictured his death.

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Painting of a dim prison cell with stone walls. A bearded man in a white robe raises one arm while seated on a wooden bed draped in white. Around him, several men sit and stand, some weeping, one lying face down in blue and yellow cloth in the foreground. A man at right holds a cup, and a figure in red sits at the bed's foot. Chains lie on the stone floor.
Jean-François Pierre Peyron, The Death of Socrates, 1786. Statens Museum for Kunst.

About this source

What it is

This is an oil painting made in 1786 by the French painter Jean-François Pierre Peyron, now held at the Statens Museum for Kunst. It shows a dim prison cell where a condemned man sits on a draped bed, surrounded by mourning companions, with a cup and chains visible nearby.

Why it matters

Painted the same year as a rival version by Jacques-Louis David, this work shows how 18th-century French artists competed to depict Socrates' death as described in Plato's Phaedo. Comparing the two versions reveals how artists chose different details and emotional tones to interpret the same ancient story just before the French Revolution.

Look closer

  • What mood does the dim, enclosed setting create compared to other versions of this scene?
  • Why might the artist show some figures weeping openly while Socrates stays calm?
  • What has the artist added that is not in any ancient text?

This painting is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Socrates on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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Line Engraving of Socrates by Landon

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Cover of a 1925 Italian paperback, Platone, Dialoghi III, Critone, tan cardboard with red double border. Handwritten inscription at top, red handwritten marking near bottom. Publisher Vallecchi Editore Firenze.Book

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Engraving of a bearded, balding bust of Socrates in an arched niche, set on a stone pedestal. Inscription below reads 'SOCRATES SOPHRONISCI FILIUS ATHENIESIS', with credits 'P.P. Rubens delin.' and 'P. Pontius sculpsit, 1638'.Painting

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Socrates Engraving after Rubens by Pontius

Peter Paul Rubens · 1638

Black-and-white photograph of a white marble bust of a bearded man, shown from the front and slightly turned, with deep-set eyes, a curly beard and hair, against a dark background. The image is a glass lantern slide with labels reading Socrate and Université de Louvain.Photograph

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Roman Marble Bust of Socrates

between 1839 and 1939

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