That is Erasistratus in red, pointing at the glowing Stratonica, with Seleucus in between, rather amazed at the diagnosis.Īntoine-Laurent and Marie-Anne Lavoisier, oil on canvas by Jacques-Louis David, 1788, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Wikimedia commons)Īnother famous David painting is a portrait of Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier and his wife, Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze, Madame Lavoisier ( third image, above). The story, set in 294 B.C.E., is told by many ancient sources, including Pliny and Plutarch, but sometimes with other physicians in the role of Erasistratus, so we cannot really take the story as fact. Erasistratus was not only rewarded financially, but he became one of the first physicians on record to connect a physical illness to a psychological cause. Far from minding, Seleucus gave up his young wife to his son and even gave him part of his kingdom. Noting that Antiochus flushed with color whenever Stratonica came into the room, he guessed the cause, and told Seleucus. Erasistratus was called in and could find no physical ailment, and he wondered if the illness had emotional or mental roots.
Antiochus was passionately in love with his young mother-in-law, Stratonica, but he was determined not to reveal his feelings and was slowly dying of misery. It depicts Erasistratus, a Greek physician and one of the founders of the anatomical school of Alexandria, diagnosing the illness of Antiochus, the son of the Emperor Seleucus, who took over most of Alexander the Great's kingdom after his death. We begin with one of David’s early paintings, Antiochus and Stratonica, painted in 1774 ( second image, above). Antiochus and Stratonica, oil on canvas by Jacques-Louis David, 1774, École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris (Wikimedia commons)
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