‘Charlotte Corday’: Sympathy for the Damsel

Paul Baudry’s painting “Charlotte Corday” revisits the topic of a journalist’s murder, in a much different tone to a previous, more famous painting.

A detail from “Charlotte Corday” by Paul Baudry (1860). Charlotte Corday was the murderer of French journalist Jean-Paul Marat. Réunion des Musées Nationaux

During the second empire under Napoleon III, the popularity of history painting was at its peak. Naturalistic ideals over neoclassical and a new interest in archaeology spurred artists towards creating paintings with an ever-increasing level of historical accuracy.