The widow of General Phocion (402-318 BC) is seen In the foreground of this picture, kneeling to collect her husband’s ashes. She is accompanied by a nervous servant girl who is turning round to look at a young man watching the two women from where he stands beneath the trees on the right. Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) painted the rural scene replicated in the print, which starts out from the Greek writer Plutarch’s (AD 46-119) account of General Phocion of Athens. Phocion was condemned to death by his enemies. They refused to allow him to be buried in the city, and thereby further humiliating him. It is in particular the temple that ensures the picture an atmosphere of antiquity. This temple was in Trevi in Italy in prehistoric times. Poussin, on the other hand, only knew it as a reconstruction.
