Cléombrote and Léonidas

Description

In the wake of the French Revolution, painting commissions were few, but polished drawings had a market. This work illustrates a scene from Plutarch’s series of biographies of famous men in which the Spartan king Léonidas spares the life of his traitorous son-in-law Cléombrote, exiling him from Sparta. After pleading for her husband’s life, the king’s daughter Chilonis departs with her banished husband and their two children.

Medium

Pen and black and brown ink, with brush and brown wash and touches of blue gouache, over red chalk, heightened with white gouache, on blue laid paper, laid down on gray laid paper