Marco Zoppo, Fragment from a Cassone Panel, “Shooting at Father’s Corpse,” c. 1462

Marco Zoppo, Fragment from a Cassone Panel, “Shooting at Father’s Corpse,” c. 1462 @LACMA

According to legend, three sons were competing for their father’s property after his death. Two of the sons were illegitimate, and the father had died before identifying the legitimate one to whom he wished to leave his entire fortune. The judge commanded all three of the sons to shoot their arrows at the dead body of their father, telling them that the one who hit hardest would inherit the fortune. After two of the sons had pierced their father’s body with their arrows the third refused in horror to do his part and was immediately proclaimed the true son and heir. *

*   Wolfgang Stechow , “Shooting at Father’s Corpse: A Note on the Hazards of Faulty Iconography,“ The Art Bulletin, Vol. 37, No. 1 (Mar., 1955), pp. 55-56