Painting of a grown dd nursing her imprisoned father...

[buttercup]

I saw it a couple weeks ago when I visited the Lightener (sp) Museum in St. Augustine, Florida. It shows a woman nursing her father who was incarcerated w/o food. The prison was trying to starve him to death. They let his daughter visit everyday and searched her for food each time she entered. They did not know she had just had a baby and was lactating. She nursed him for several weeks until the prison released him because they though he was supernatural. The painting had the name of the father and daughter, both started w/ P. I think the daughter's name was Pera or Petra. Does anyone know? It was really a facinating painting.

Jenni

[lillaurensmomma]

I found this...
http://www.hait.ac.il/staff/boazT/balaseng.htm
In secular art there are depictions of a woman nourishing an old man. These originate in a Roman literary source dating from c. 30. In Facta et dicta memorabilia, Valerius Maximus recounts the story of Pero, a young woman who nursed her father, Cimon, imprisoned and condemned to starvation. Her devotion persuades the authorities to release her father, and thus she saves his life.

And the painting itself
http://www.getty.edu/art/collections...s/o135448.html

[Camellia]

Milk, Money, and Madness discusses that painting. I thought they said they freed the man because of the daughters love for him or her selflessness or something along those lines.

I will check out the pp's links and see what they say!

[kama'aina mama]

I wonder if that's where the idea for the scene at the end of The Grapes of Wrath comes from.

[buttercup]

lillaurensmomma - Yes Yes Yes, that is it. Thank you so very much.

kama'aina mama - I completely forgot about that moment at the end of the Grapes of Wrath. It is weird that I was so drawn to that section when I was a teenager (when I read the book). And I am still drawn to images such as that.

It is just amazing that the power a woman has just by simply making milk to help a little one grow or to save an adult from starvation...to save a life.