Cornelia Presenting Her Children as Her Treasures

At the centre of Kauffmann's painting, a Roman woman sits with an open jewelry box in her lap, holding up a necklace to show it off. She has come to visit Cornelia and asked, mid-visit, to see Cornelia's own jewels. Cornelia, standing at the right, has just pointed to her children instead. Kauffmann painted the exact moment of embarrassment. The visitor's brow is furrowed, her mouth slightly open. Her necklace is still hanging from her fingers. Cornelia's two older sons, standing beside her in Roman togas, would grow up to become Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus. They led the greatest social reform movement of the Roman Republic before both were murdered by the Senate. Now at Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond @vmfamuseum