1958.67
The Death of Dido
Artist
Sir Peter Paul Rubens
(Siegen, 6/28/1577 - 5/30/1640, Antwerp, Flanders)
Title
The Death of Dido
Creation Date
1600-1603
Century
17th century
Dimensions
3 3/4 in. x 4 1/2 in. (9.53 cm. x 11.5 cm.)
Object Type
drawing
Creation Place
Europe, Flanders, Flanders
Medium and Support
pen and brown ink on paper
Credit Line
Bequest of Helen Johnson Chase (Mrs. Stanley P.)
Copyright
Public Domain
Accession Number
1958.67
According to Virgil’s “Aeneid,” Dido, Queen of Carthage, is distraught when her lover Aeneas departs. To the shock of all, she mounts a pyre assembled from Aeneas’s belongings and falls on a sword. In this sketch and a related sheet at the Louvre, Rubens develops varying poses of the figure with outstretched arms, flowing drapery, and pained expression. This sheet is a rare “first idea” sketch Rubens drew early in his Italian years, when he was in the service of the Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga of Mantua. At the time, these initial explorations--“crabbelingen”, or scribbles, in Flemish--were still considered too rough to share and save, and would often be abandoned after the artist had polished his initial spark of an idea into a more carefully rendered design. A small number of paintings related to the “Aeneid” survive, suggesting that Rubens may have worked on an entire Aeneas cycle.
Additional Media
verso