. . "The cartoons for the set of five tapestries to which this piece belongs were painted by Maximillian de Hase, court painter to Empress Maria Teresa, with their subject taken from ancient Persian history. Gobrias, an elderly Assyrian prince, asked for King Cyrus' help to avenge the death of his son, and offered his daughter's hand as part of his pledge. The main source of stories of Cyrus' life was the Cyropaedi, a biography of him written in the 4th century BC by Xenophon of Athens. The Cyropaedia was rediscovered in Western Europe during the late medieval period as a treatise on political virtue and social organization, and continued to be widely read and respected through to the 18th century."@en . .