Sharp-eyed curators spot that sketch is an artist’s original, rather than a copy

Amid the multi-million-dollar record prices and packed salerooms of New York’s Old Master week, the Metropolitan Museum of Art quietly made the steal of the season in the Old Master drawings auction at Swann Galleries on 29 January.

??David’s painting, bought by the Met in 1931, is among the artist’s greatest masterpieces, and has received universal acclaim since its debut at the Salon of 1787. At first glance, the newly acquired drawing may appear to be a copy, but considerable changes in setting and in the positions and gestures of the figures indicate that it is, rather, a previously unrecorded preliminary com positional study for the painting.??

Com positional drawings by David are highly sought after. In 2006, the Met bought a study for The Lictors Bringing Brutus the Bodies of his Sons, 1787, which had been auctioned in Paris the previous year for €510,000. Despite all the sleeper-seeking drawing dealers and curators in town, nobody else spotted Socrates at Swann—and the Met snapped it up, via the museum’s frequent agent Katrin Bellinger, for its high estimate of $700 ($840 with premium).