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| Pierre-Narcisse Guérin Return of Marcus Sextus 1799 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
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| Jean-Jacque-François Le Barbier The Meeting of Helen and Paris 1799 oil on canvas Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky |
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| Pierre-Paul Prud'hon Death of Alceste 1785 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
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| Jacques-Louis David Combat of Mars and Minerva 1771 oil on canvas Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon |
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| Jean-Baptiste-Henri Deshays Hector exposed on the Banks of the River Xanthus 1759 oil on canvas Musée Fabre, Montpellier |
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| Jean-Baptiste Greuze Psyche crowning Cupid ca. 1785-90 oil on canvas Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille |
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| François Gérard Psyche receives Cupid's First Kiss before 1798 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
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| Jean Broc The School of Apelles ca. 1795-1800 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
Under the influence of his master, Jacques-Louis David, Broc intends to put compositional rigor and technical adroitness on unmistakable display in The School of Apelles. The figures are deployed in a wide horizontal band to invoke an antique sculptural frieze. This was standard Neoclassical practice, but the illumination – also strictly controlled – is original. The foreground has a single strong light-source pouring in from upper left. It caresses and contours the anatomies of the crowds of beautiful young men, washing out the colors of their draperies in a graduated effect from left to right. The background, only visible through the central arch, instead of being rendered with the conventional fade into dimness, is made brighter. But the distant light streams down from the opposite direction – the upper right – as is emphasized by the central figure descending the staircase, who turns his head to look directly into the light source along the exact line of its descent. This competing fall of light is also marked out diagonally across the steps on a tangent of shadow bisected by the moving foot of this blue-draped, twisting figure. He would, in fact, occupy the exact center of the composition, if Broc had not contrived to avoid a too-predictable symmetry by sliding the viewer's perspective on the three dominating arches slightly to the left. Displayed at the Paris Salon of 1800, the picture was favorably compared to Raphael's School of Athens – as the artist no doubt hoped and intended. This level of praise is unlikely to be repeated by present-day visitors to the Louvre, yet they are still often surprised and brought up short by the work's clarity and power.
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| Jean Broc The School of Apelles (detail) ca. 1795-1800 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
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| Jean Broc The School of Apelles (detail) ca. 1795-1800 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
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| Jean-Baptiste-Henri Deshays Briseis led away from the Tent of Achilles ca. 1761 oil on canvas Musée des Augustins de Toulouse |
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| Robert Lefèvre Cupid sharpening his Arrows 1798 oil on canvas Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen |
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| Jean Restout the Younger The Continence of Scipio ca. 1728 oil on canvas Gemäldegalerie, Berlin |
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| Jean-Bernard Restout Aeneas and Dido fleeing the Storm ca. 1772-74 oil on paper, mounted on canvas (sketch) Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
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| Jean-Marc Nattier Portrait of Jeanne Louise de Lorraine-Brionne as Athena with her brother, the comte de Brionne 1732 oil on canvas Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille |