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Case file s1759 · Literature and art · 1825
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1825
Jacques-Louis David: French: Portrait de l'artiste Self-portraittitle QS:P1476,fr:"Portrait de l'artiste "label QS:Lfr,"Portrait de l'artiste
Jacques-Louis David. Jacques-Louis David. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.
Died
29 December 1825 (one source gives 25 December)
Place
Brussels · Belgium
Field
painter · Visual art and architecture on the timeline
Legal tradition
French Restoration law on regicide exiles · Civil law
Historical event
Bourbon Restoration; exile of those who voted to execute Louis XVI
Member of
Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Académie des beaux-arts, Jacobins (Wikidata)
Literature and artBodies, bones and burialsIndustry and empireEuropeBelgium

France refused to take back Jacques-Louis David's body in 1825, so he lies in a Brussels cemetery under an obelisk

Jacques-Louis David voted for the execution of Louis XVI in 1793 and later became Napoleon's first painter. After 1815 he lived in exile in Brussels. He died there in December 1825. His family asked to bring him home, but the French government did not accept repatriation. His lead-lined oak coffin stayed in the churchyard of the Collegiate Church of St. Michael and St. Gudula, now Brussels cathedral. A monument with the inscription "À Jacques-Louis David restaurateur de l'école moderne de peinture de France ici dessous" was raised. In 1882 a grandson asked for a more prominent site, and the body was reburied at the Mayor's circle in the new Evere cemetery. Joseph Marty's guide to Père Lachaise says David's heart lies near his wife's body there; the claim is unverified†. On 4 March 1993 Brussels gave the grave monument heritage status. An association of painters and sculptors maintains it. In 2026 the body is still in Belgium.

What the law took from it

A government can decide where a citizen is buried even when the family asks otherwise.

Sources
  1. patrimoine.brusselsPress
  2. brussels.bePress
  3. Wikipedia (English)Encyclopedia

Cite as: celebrity.estate, “France refused to take back Jacques-Louis David's body in 1825, so he lies in a Brussels cemetery under an obelisk,” story s1759, https://www.celebrity.estate/jacques-louis-david-1825, updated 30 October 2026.

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Where this case sits

Literature and artBodies, bones and burialsIndustry and empireEuropeCivil lawBelgium