The Suicide of Dido

This plaque is part of a series whose designs were based upon the woodcut illustrations of an edition of Virgil, "Opera," edited by Sebastian Brant and printed by Johann Grüninger in Strasbourg, September 9, 1502 (50th illustration, fol. 228). The same cuts appeared in an edition issued at Lyons in 1517 by Sacon.

The plaque depicts a scene from the "Aeneid," (IV, vv. 663-695). Dido stabs herself with Aeneas' sword as she stands atop a flight of four steps near a funeral pyre on which are already burning "the Trojan garb and the familiar bed." The garments of Aeneas have been curiously rendered as the prostrate body of the hero himself. A throng of Carthaginians rushes to the scene and Anna calls upon her dying sister. Iris is sent by Juno to release Dido's "struggling soul from the imprisoning limbs."

Provenance

Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object. Learn more about provenance at the Walters.

Anatole Demidoff, Prince of San Donato [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Prince of San Donato Sale, Paris, March 17, 1870, part II, lot 459; Jacques Seligmann, New York [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1902, by purchase [Emil Rey as agent]; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.