Solon was appointed archon (chief magistrate) of Athens in 594 BC after a long period of civil upheaval, and his measures were so popular that he was authorized to remodel the Athenian constitution. He repealed most of the Draconian laws and introduced democratic reform by instituting the Boule (Council of Athens) and enlarging the Ecclesia (popular assembly).

This is a study for a monochrome fresco by Perino del Vaga’s workshop in the lower register of Raphael's Jurisprudence wall, in the Stanza della Segnatura of the Vatican Palace, Rome (see RCIN 912734 for an account of the decorative scheme of the Stanza). The sheet corresponds almost exactly with the fresco as executed, except for the substitution of a caryatid in profile for the standing figures at far right.

When Raphael decorated the room it was probably to be used as Julius II's private library, but on the dispersal of the library after Julius's death in 1513 the bookshelves were replaced by intarsia panels by Fra Giovanni da Verona. Paul III's subsequent scheme to move a fireplace from the Stanza dell'Incendio to the Disputa wall of the Segnatura in 1541 led to the removal of this panelling, and Perino was commissioned to redecorate the remaining lower portion of the walls. Vasari recorded that due to illness Perino did not execute the paintings himself, but provided finished cartoons for his pupils and made the finishing touches to their efforts (see Giorgio Vasari’s Life of Perino, 1568, II, p. 366).

Perino's grisailles consist of caryatids and garlands flanking scenes complementing the subjects of Raphael's frescoes above, executed some thirty years before. Below the School of Athens are the Death of Archimedes, the Siege of Syracuse, a Dispute on the terrestrial globe, and an personification of Philosophy; below the Disputa, an Antique sacrifice; and below the Jurisprudence are Moses giving the Tablets of Law to the Hebrews and Solon giving laws to the Athenians. Soon after Perino's work on the socle was completed, the chimney was returned to the Incendio, and nicely twinned frescoes of Augustus's vision of the Virgin and St Augustine's vision of the child on the beach were added below the Disputa, perhaps by Daniele da Volterra, to fill the gap.