Virgil reading the sixth book of the Aeneid to Augustus and Octavia

The scene depicted is when Octavia fainted during Virgil's recital of his panegyric to Marcellus, Octavia's son, who had died in his prime. Alexandre Menjaud (1773-1832), a pupil of Regnault and winner of the Prix de Rome in 1802, exhibited a work depicting this unusual subject in the Salon of 1796.