Arete Appealing to her Prison Guards

An accomplished painter of historical subjects and portraits in the neoclassical mode, Perrin served as head of the Free School of Drawing in Paris from 1806, and exhibited regularly at the Salon between 1787 and 1822. Signed and dated 1795, the present picture depicts a story recounted by Plutarch in his Life of Dion (L VII, 3). After Dion was murdered on the orders of Callippus, his wife and sister were imprisoned. There Dion's wife, Arete, gave birth to a baby boy, who she resolved to keep by her side. Here, Arete, just having delivered, appeals to the prison guards for permission to nurse the infant, held in the arms of her sister-in-law, Aristomache.

Perrin exhibited a painting of this subject in the Salon of 1798 (no. 332). Although the present work may have been preparatory for the Salon picture, its high degree of finish and signature suggest, rather, that it was conceived independently.