Henry Fuseli, 1741–1825, Swiss, active in Britain (1766–70; 1779 on)
Title:
Dido
Date:
1781
Materials & Techniques:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
96 3/16 × 72 3/16 inches (244.3 × 183.4 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1976.7.184
Gallery Label:
Dido was the legendary founder and first queen of Carthage (modern-day Tunisia). Her passionate love for the Trojan hero Aeneas, who was shipwrecked on the Carthaginian coast, is told in Vergil’s Aeneid. When Aeneas abandoned her to pursue his destiny, Dido built a funeral pyre from the couple’s bed and the belongings Aeneas left behind. At the sight of the Trojan ships leaving, Dido climbed onto the pyre and stabbed herself with Aeneas’s sword. The goddess Juno, protectress of Carthage, sent her messenger Iris to cut a lock of Dido’s hair to release her soul. For Fuseli, Dido’s violent suicide from a broken heart epitomized in his words, “supreme beauty in the jaws of death.” Fuseli, a Swiss émigré, exhibited this painting at the Royal Academy in 1781, just two years after settling in Britain. Gallery label for Love, Life, Death, and Desire: An Installation of the Center's Collections (Yale Center for British Art, 2020-11-01 – 2021-02-28)
