Cimon and Pero: "Roman Charity"

This powerful depiction of Cimon and Pero illustrates the Roman story of a daughter who secretly breastfed her imprisoned and starving father, known as Roman Charity. Painted in 1767 for an important patron, the work demonstrates Greuze's ambition to elevate genre painting to the moral seriousness of history painting, a goal that would lead to his controversial confrontation with the Académie two years later. celebrated at the Salon for moralizing genre scenes, later shifted to portraiture and provocative heads.

Strong chiaroscuro modeling and a compressed compositional space intensify the emotional drama, with carefully observed anatomical detail in the figures revealing Greuze's academic training.