Alexander the Great trust to physician Phillip

Siemiradzki painted this in 1870 as his graduation competition piece at the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg, working to a set subject drawn from ancient history. The story comes from Plutarch. Alexander the Great, gravely ill on campaign, has just been warned by letter that his own doctor, Philip of Acarnania, means to poison the medicine he has prepared. Alexander drinks it anyway, and hands Philip the accusing letter to read as he swallows, a public wager of trust. The young painter stages it like theatre, the pale king on his couch, the physician bending close over him. It won him the academy's large gold medal and a six-year scholarship to travel and study abroad, which set his career in motion.