About the Artwork
Belisarius was a celebrated Byzantine general during the 500s CE. His armies conquered extensive territories around the Mediterranean for Emperor Justinian I, garnering him fame that made him a target for political intrigue in the imperial court. Rivals accused him of conspiring against the emperor, and, according to a 1767 version of this story popularized by the French novelist François Marmontel, Justinian blinded Belisarius in punishment. Benjamin West, an American painter working in London, shows the general impoverished, blind, and abandoned by his powerful friends, accompanied only by a young boy helping him beg for coins.
For colonial Americans, the story of Belisarius was also an allegory of patriotic virtue undermined by imperial greed. As a diplomat representing Pennsylvania in London, Benjamin Franklin distributed a satirical cartoon in protest of the Stamp Act showing the allegorical figure of Britannia as Belisarius. In that image, Great Britain was abandoned by the thirteen colonies for exploitation and reduced to begging for coins.
Belisarius and the Boy
1802
Benjamin West
1738-1820
American
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Oil on canvas
Unframed: 26 × 19 inches (66 × 48.3 cm) Framed: 34 3/4 × 27 1/2 × 3 3/4 inches (88.3 × 69.9 × 9.5 cm)
Paintings
American Art before 1950
Gift of A. Leonard Nicholson
13.11
Public Domain
Markings
Signed and dated, lower right, on side of stone seat: B. West | 1802
Inscribed, on boy's plaque: DATE OBOLUM BELISARIO [translated: Give a penny to Belisarius] Inscribed, on wall above old man: MOENIA URBIS REPARATA SUB IUSTINIANO A BELISARIO [translated: The fortifications of the city restored under Justinian by Belisarius] [this refers to Belisarius's reconstruction of the walls of Rome in 537]
Provenance
1802, Sir Francis Baring, Bt. (London, England);1848, his son, Sir Thomas Baring, Bt.
June 2-3, 1848, Baring sale (Christies, lot 26, London, England).
A. Leonard Nicholson (London, England);
1913-present, gift to the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)
For more information on provenance, please visit:
Provenance pageExhibition History
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The exhibition history of a number of objects in our collection only begins after their acquisition by the museum, and may reflect an incomplete record.
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“A Correct Catalogue of the Works of Mr. West.” Public Characters of 1805 (1805): p. 563.
“A Correct List of the Works of Mr. West.” Universal Magazine 3 (1805): p. 529.
Barlow, Joel. The Columbiad. A Poem. Philadelphia, 1807, p. 434.
“A Correct Catalogue of the Works of Benjamin West, Esq.” La Belle Assemblee or Bell’s Court and Fashionable Magazine 4 (1808): p. 16.
Galt, John. The Life and Works of Benjamin West, ESQ., President of the Royal Academy of London, Subsequent to his Arrival in the Country. London, 1820, p. 224.
[Note on the following three exhibitions.: Venue may have been West's Gallery. Several catalogues dating from 1822-1828, virtually all identical, have been located with the exhibition title Pictures and Drawings by the Late Benjamin West, Esq., President of the Royal Academy.]
British Institution, London, 1824, no. 15.
British Institution, London, 1833, no. 21.
British Institution, London, 1845, no. 99.
“Belisarius and the Boy by Benjamin West.” Bulletin of the DMA 7, 2 (April 1913): pp. 21, 45-47.
Art Quarterly 14, 4 (Winter 1951).
Pilgrim Tercentenary Exhibition. Exh. cat., Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit, 1921, no. 310.
Evans, Grose. Benjamin West and the Taste of his Times. Carbondale, IL, 1959, pp. 90-91 (pl. 68).
Cummings, Frederick, Robert Rosenblum, and Allen Staley. Romantic Art in Britain: Paintings and Drawings 1760-1860. Exh. cat., Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit, 1968, pp. 99-100.
Kraemer, Ruth S. Drawings by Benjamin West and his Son Raphael Lamar West. New York, 1975, pp. 40-42.
Dillenberger, John. Benjamin West: The Context of his Life’s Work with Particular Attention to Paintings with Religious Subject Matter. San Antonio, 1977, p. 161.
Von Erffa, Helmut and Allen Staley. Benjamin West. New Haven, CT, 1986, pp. 183-184, no. 42 (ill.).
Black, Mary, et al. American Paintings in the Detroit Institute of Arts, Volume One: Works by Artists Born Before 1816. New York, 1991, pp. 243-245, no. 111.
Cumming, Robert. Art: A Field Guide. New York, 2001, p. 279 (ill.).
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Credit Line for Reproduction
Benjamin West, Belisarius and the Boy, 1802, oil on canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts, Gift of A. Leonard Nicholson, 13.11.
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