5. Hans Sebald Beham(1500-1550)
after Barthel Beham (1502-1540)

Cimon and Pero (The Roman Charity)

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Beham, Cimon and Pero

Cimon and Pero (The Roman Charity)

Engraving, 1544, 70 x 48 mm., Bartsch 75, Pauli 79 iii/iii. Fine, dark impression on laid paper, trimmed on the plate mark but complete. The Roman writer Valerius Maximus tells the story of Cimon, an old man, who was in prison awaiting execution and given no food. His daughter Pero was allowed to visit him and nourished him with her breast. Hans Beham made no less than four prints of the subject, this one an elaboration of one by his younger brother. The story is meant to illustrate filial piety, but there is here an erotic component foreign to that concept.