2-489-510 - © Fine Art Images/Heritage Images

'The Triumph of Marat', 1793. Immortal defender of the people and their rights, he brings down the great and overturns the throne, founding equality on the fall of the kings: of civic virtue offer him the crown!. Jean-Paul Marat (1743-1793) was a journalist and politician and one of the most radical figures of the French Revolution. He was a staunch supporter of the rights of the Parisian poor, the sans-culottes, with whom he was very popular. He was their link with the Jacobin faction that came to power in June 1793 and at the time was one of the three most powerful men in France, alongside Maximilien Robespierre and Georges Danton. Marat was murdered in his bath on 13 July 1793 by Charlotte Corday, a supporter of the Girondin faction. Private collection.