The Arrest of Charlotte Corday
painting by Henri Scheffer
The Arrest of Charlotte Corday (French: L'Arrestation de Charlotte Corday) is an 1830 history painting by the Dutch artist Hendrik Scheffer. Portraying a scene during the French Revolution, it depicts the arrest of Charlotte Corday following her assassination of the leading official Jean-Paul Marat. Corday, a member of the Girondist faction stabbed Marat to death while he lay in his bath on 13 July 1793 She was guillotined four days later. Corday became a symbol of the opposition during the Reign of Terror before the Fall of Maximilien Robespierre in July 1794, and continued to be a popular icon. She is shown calm and impassive despite being surrounded by hectoring sans-culottes.
Scheffer was the younger brother of Ary Scheffer, another noted artist. The painting was exhibited at the Salon of 1831 at the Louvre in Paris. It was purchased by the French state in an effort to promote national cohesion in the wake of the July Revolution of 1830, and had also been displayed at the Luxembourg Palace to raise money for those wounded in the recent revolution. Today the work is on display in the Museum of Grenoble where it has been since 1892.
References
Bibliography
Clair, Jean.
The public source identifies “The Arrest of Charlotte Corday” as painting by Henri Scheffer. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Arrest, Charlotte and Corday.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q106472304. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1830, 1793, 1794 and 1831.
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