Title: Justice and Divine

Artist: Paul Prud'hon

Justice and Divine Vengeance Pursuing Crime About 1805–6 Pierre-Paul Prud'hon French, Cluny 1758–Paris 1823 Oil on canvas "This lurid, moonlit scene shows Justice, raising her sword, and Divine Vengeance, blazing the way with a torch, in swift pursuit of a murderer fleeing the scene of his crime, bloody dagger still in hand. The work served as a preparatory study for a large allegorical painting, today in the Louvre, that was originally destined to hang behind the judge's bench in the criminal court of the Palais de Justice in Paris. Prud'hon's inspiration was a line from the ancient Roman poet Horace: 'Rarely does Retribution fail to catch up with the criminal' (Odes, Book III)."