# Caritas Romana \(Roman Charity\)

[View the canonical artwork record](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/crayer-gaspard-de-r108fe391a1d2cd/caritas-romana-roman-charity-r554898074683af>)

## Artwork

- Artist: [CRAYER, Gaspard de](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/crayer-gaspard-de-r108fe391a1d2cd>)
- Date: 1601-1650
- Technique: Oil on canvas, 198 x 144 cm

## Commentary

Of the examples of &#39;filial piety&#39; in the literature of antiquity, that of Cimon and Pero was one of the ones that appealed most to artists of the 16th to 18th centuries in Italy and the Netherlands. Valerius Maximus tells of a certain Cimon, an aged man, who was in prison awaiting execution and who was therefore given no food. The jailer allowed Cimon&#39;s daughter Pero to visit him. She nourished him by giving him her breast. The scene is a prison cell; the white-haired prisoner, manacled, reclines in the lap of a young woman who is suckling him.

## Related artworks

- [Alexander and Diogenes](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/crayer-gaspard-de-r108fe391a1d2cd/alexander-and-diogenes-rc735f48623d037>)
- [Equestrian Portrait of Cardinal-Infante Fernando of Austria](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/crayer-gaspard-de-r108fe391a1d2cd/equestrian-portrait-of-cardinal-infante-fernando-of-austria-r45e77210094d3c>)
- [Head Study of a Young Moor](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/crayer-gaspard-de-r108fe391a1d2cd/head-study-of-a-young-moor-r7ae4013120f2dd>)
- [Pietà with Donors](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/crayer-gaspard-de-r108fe391a1d2cd/piet-with-donors-rea4600bcee0137>)
- [Portrait of a Lady](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/crayer-gaspard-de-r108fe391a1d2cd/portrait-of-a-lady-rff0df6ba523bf5>)
- [The Cardinal Infante](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/crayer-gaspard-de-r108fe391a1d2cd/the-cardinal-infante-r2045ab5ed0a480>)
- [The Coronation of St Rosalie](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/crayer-gaspard-de-r108fe391a1d2cd/the-coronation-of-st-rosalie-re59de2e1fc25b5>)
- [The Lactation of St Bernard of Clairvaux](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/crayer-gaspard-de-r108fe391a1d2cd/the-lactation-of-st-bernard-of-clairvaux-r3b1284e653f91f>)
- [Virgin Enthroned with Saints](<https://beta.wga.hu/artists/crayer-gaspard-de-r108fe391a1d2cd/virgin-enthroned-with-saints-r905ac90bfdf1e2>)

## Attribution

[Web Gallery of Art](<https://beta.wga.hu/pages/about>)