David et Bethsabee (David and Bathsheba)

Medium: Color lithograph and carborundum
Dimensions: 39 x 27 inches
Signature: Signed
Artist details: French, 1927 - 2012
Date finished: 1984
Edition: 47/125

Bathsheba was King David's most famous wife because their marriage came after an illicit extramarital affair at the height of David's reign (circa 1005-965 B.C.). The scholarship around the relationship of Bathsheba and David subsequently has centered on who seduced whom? In Tobiasse’s rendering, Bathsheba is an exuberant and willing participant in the adulterous affair. This interpretation is made all the more clear in the way Bathsheba very directly offers up her breast, but more  telling is Tobiasse’s inclusion of a target with an arrow on the bulls eye placed on King David’s head.