Dido - YCBA Collections Search

Henry Fuseli, 1741–1825, Swiss, active in Britain (1766–70; 1779 on), Dido, 1781

Creator:: Henry Fuseli, 1741–1825
Title:: Dido
Date:: 1781
Medium:: Oil on canvas
Dimensions:: 96 3/16 × 72 3/16 inches (244.3 × 183.4 cm), Frame: 105 3/4 × 81 5/8 × 3 1/4 inches (268.6 × 207.3 × 8.3 cm)
Credit Line:: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:: Public Domain
Accession Number:: B1976.7.184
Classification:: Paintings
Collection:: Paintings and Sculpture
Link to Frame:: B1976.7.184FR
Subject Terms:: blood | costume | death | hair | love | lovers | messenger | mourning | mythology | nude | queen (person) | religious and mythological subject | sadness | suicide | sword | urn | women
Associated People:: Dido
Access:: Not on view
Note: To make an appointment to see this work, please contact the Paintings and Sculpture department at ycba.paintings@yale.edu. Please visit the Paintings and Sculpture collections page on our website for more details.
Link:: https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:22
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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)

Henry Fuseli, a Swiss émigré, exhibited this painting at the Royal Academy in 1781, just two years after settling in Britain. Dido was the legendary founder and first queen of Carthage (modern-day Tunisia). Her passionate love affair with the Trojan hero Aeneas, who had been shipwrecked on the Carthaginian coast, is told in Virgil’s Aeneid. When Aeneas abandoned her to pursue his destiny, Dido and her sister Anna 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, then sent her messenger Iris to cut a lock of Dido’s hair to release her soul. For Fuseli, Dido’s violent suicide, as represented in this painting, was not an ignoble act; rather, it epitomized in his words, “supreme beauty in the jaws of death.”

Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016

Füseli and the Power of Dreams (Musée Jacquemart-André, 2022-09-16 - 2023-01-23) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Love, Life, Death, and Desire: An Installation of the Center's Collections (Yale Center for British Art, 2020-10-01 - 2021-02-28) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]

Fuseli - Drama and Theatre (Kunstmuseum Basel, 2018-10-20 - 2019-02-10) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

The Critique of Reason : Romantic Art, 1760–1860 (Yale University Art Gallery, 2015-03-06 - 2015-07-26) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

' Art on the Line ' : the Royal Academy Exhibitions at Somerset House 1780-1836 (The Courtauld Gallery, 2001-10-17 - 2002-01-20) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Henry Fuseli (Tokyo) (Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art, 1984-01-06 - 1984-02-04) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Henry Fuseli (Tokyo) (The National Museum of Western Art, 1983-11-11 - 1983-12-18) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]

Art on the line : the Royal Academy exhibitions at Somerset House, 1780-1836 : [catalogue of works], , The Courtauld Gallery, London, 2001, no. 39, V 0909 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Malcolm Cormack, Concise Catalogue of Paintings in the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1985, pp. 94-95, N590.2 A83 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Mark Hallett, Reynolds : portraiture in action, The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, New Haven, 2014, pp. 349, 350, 404-05, fig. no. 389, NJ18.R36 H35 2014 OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

Alex Potts, Art on the Line, Burlington Magazine, vol 144, March 2002, pp. 177-78, fig. 5, Available online: JSTOR [ORBIS]

Alex Potts, Art on the Line, Burlington Magazine, vol 144, March 2002, pp. 177-78, fig. 5, N1 B87 OVERSIZE (YCBA) [ORBIS]

Duncan Robinson, Reynold's Portraits, Burlington Magazine, vol 157, May 2015, p. 346, N1 B87 OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

Gert Schiff, L'Opera Completa di Fussli, Rizzoli, Milan, 1977, pp. 88, 89, no. 25, fig. 25, NJ18 F98 A12 S34 OVERSIZE (YCBA) [YCBA]

David H. Solkin, Art on the Line : the Royal Academy Exhibitions at Somerset House 1780-1836, , Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 2001, pp. 76, 84, 86,87, fig. no. 56; foldout no. 22., N5054 A78 2001B (YCBA) [YCBA]

The critique of reason : Romantic art, 1760-1860 : March 6-July 26, 2015, Yale University Art Gallery, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, 2015, [pp. 12-14], fig. 20, V 2574 (YCBA) [YCBA]

Mary Webster, Johan Zoffany, 1733-1810, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 2011, pp. 377, 375, fig. 281, NJ18 Z68 W43 2011 + (YCBA) [YCBA]

Iris Wien, Joshua Reynolds : Mythos und Metapher, Wilhelm Fink, Munchen, 2009, pp. 343-53, fig. 98, NJ18.R36 W54 2009 [ORBIS]

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