![Jean-Baptiste Greuze - Cimon and Pero; Roman Charity [c.1767] by Gandalf's Gallery](http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3761/9163253797_e18e4d33b5.jpg)
Jean-Baptiste Greuze - Cimon and Pero; Roman Charity [c.1767], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.
When the aged Cimon was forced to starve in prison before his execution, his devoted daughter Pero secretly visited her father to nourish him at her own breast. In his Memorable Acts and Sayings of the Ancient Romans, the ancient Roman historian Valerius Maximus, Pero's selfless devotion was presented as the highest example of honouring one's parent.
In the 1600s, major artists painted dramatic versions of the popular subject, which Jean-Baptiste Greuze (Tournus, 1725 - Paris, 1805) and other artists revived a century later. Closely basing the setting and arrangement of figures on Peter Paul Rubens's version, Greuze probably made this oil sketch as the final stage of preparation for an unexecuted, large-scale painting. Contemporaries admired the rapid execution, vibrant colours, and lively paint handling in Greuze's oil sketches. The critic Denis Diderot lavishly praised his combination of genre and history painting and his public, moralizing purpose.
[Getty Centre, Los Angeles - Oil on canvas, 25.5 x 31.75 inches]