The subject of the above lot is recounted in Plutarch's life of Marcus Furius Camillus, in which patriotic Roman women donated their jewels to the state to pay for a golden urn which Camillus had pledged to Apollo for the victory over the Etruscan city of Veii. The subject was popular amongst French painters of the early 1790s who were inspired by an actual event which took place in Paris on September 7, 1789 in which a group of women, dressed in antique clothing, went to the National Assembly to donate their jewels to the State. The patriotic act of the French women was recorded in prints and drawings which were widely distributed