Salomon de Bray - Pero - Allegory of Charity

Salomon de Bray

Pero - Allegory of Charity

Oil on panel. 63 x 48 cm.

Pieter Biesboer was responsible for the exhibition of works by the De Bray family held in Haarlem in 2008. The catalogue of this exhibition was a collaboration between him, Fred C. Meijer and Friso Lammertse and remains the most important reference work for this important family of Haarlem based painters to this day.
This work depicts a woman gazing upwards with one breast exposed. She wears a fine linen shirt and over it a half-unbuttoned red bodice. Her dark blonde hair is tied with a satin ribbon. This female bust does not appear to depict any particular woman, rather the modest and dignified pose indicates it to be an allegorical subject. The exposed breast identifies her as the Roman heroine Pero. According to legend, Pero saved her father Cimon, who had been imprisoned and sentenced to starvation, from death by going to his cell and feeding him with milk from her breasts. She is considered a symbol of female charity and a moral role model.
Her story, which is recorded in Valerius Maximus' work “Factorum ac Dictorum Memorabilium”, inspired artists throughout the 16th to the 19th century, from Rubens to Jansens, Baburen, and Pieter van Mol to Jean-Baptiste Greuze in France and Johann Zoffany in England. Salomon de Bray appears to have had a penchant for allegorical figures, as he depicted Hagar and Semiramis in similarly composed works.
We would like to thank Pieter Biesboer for confirming this painting to be the work of Salomon de Bray.

Certificate

Pieter Biesboer, Haarlem, March 2018.

Literature

For comparison: Pieter Biesboer (ed.): Painting Family: The De Brays, Master Painters of the 17th-Century Holland. 2008.