A Broken Hero

Belisarius receiving hospitality from a peasant who had served under him (1779) by the French neoclassical painter Jean-François Pierre Peyron (1744-1814).

Peyron was one of the most influential neoclassical painters of his time until the rise of David. He shows here the great Byzantine General who defeated Vandals and Ostrogoths but was nonetheless blinded by an ungrateful Emperor. Here the old blind hero is still worshiped by one of his veterans.