Homage to Corday

1988. The very first picture in the series I subsequently named Belle (beautiful women in Italian). Shot in my next-door neighbour's cow shed outside Bologna, it was done as a joke to enter into an art competition. It is based on David's 'Death of Marat'. Corday was the brave woman who knifed the tyrant in his bath. She was guillotined shortly after having her portrait painted in prison, aged 24. The actual tin bath is in the Grévin Wax Museum, Paris.