The theme selected for his pictures is a horrible one--the conviction and the flaying alive of Sisamnes, an Egyptian judge who had been accused of receiving bribes. The story is first told by Herodotus, but David had probably culled it from the pages of Valerius Maximus, and there can be no doubt that the subject was suggested to him by the tragedy which had just taken place beneath the shadow of the Belfry. He has represented himself in the first panel calmly surveying the arrest of Sisamnes, and it may well be that he actually witnessed the execution of Lanchals, perhaps expressly with a view to these paintings. In each case the scene is laid at Bruges, the figures, the faces, the attitudes, the costumes, are all essentially Flemish, and it is in the highest degree probable that he introduced other portraits besides his own. Mark the expression of Sisamnes in the flaying scene. See how his features twitch, how he clenches his hands and his teeth, and draws back his lips in agony. Did Peter Lanchals look like that when he was being racked in the infernal machine which he himself had invented? There are only seven other pictures which can at present be certainly attributed to Gerard David. They are all of a sacred character, and four of them were painted for churches in Bruges. Of these the most beautiful is the triptych presented to the Carmelite nuns in 1509, and which adorned the high altar of their chapel until the community was suppressed by Joseph II. in 1783. Two years later, when their property was sold at Brussels, David's picture was purchased by a dealer named Berthels for fifty-one florins. He sold it to a French collector, Monsieur Miliotti, in whose possession it remained until his estate was confiscated by the Revolutionary government some years later. Presently it was hung in the Municipal Gallery at Rouen, where it still remains. This is the most decorative, and perhaps the most charming of David's pictures. The subject is Our Lady surrounded by angels and virgin saints. The grouping is sufficiently symmetrical and altogether excellent, the scheme of colour is rich and harmonious, and though the sacred figures almost entirely cover the panel, owing to the lack of detail in the background, a mass of deep, sombre green, almost black, they appear in no way crowded. The faces are for the most part somewhat heavy, and decidedly Flemish, but there is an air of calm repose about them which is very restful, and the fair-haired, white-robed angels which stand on each side of Our Lady's throne are of another type. David must have drawn them from peasant models. This picture is all the more interesting from the fact that the artist has introduced his own portrait, and also that of his wife Cornelia,[47] the daughter of a Bruges goldsmith, one Jacob Cnoop, a native of Middelburg in Holland. Unless David flattered his wife, she must have been a woman of singularly prepossessing appearance, with bright eyes and an intelligent face.