Dido Sacrifices to Juno, the Goddess of Marriage (1679): Art, History and Details

Dido Sacrifices to Juno, the Goddess of Marriage (1679) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Giovanni Francesco Romanelli (Italian, 1610–1662); Michael Wauters (Flemish, 1679).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Dido loves Aeneas and offers a sacrifice to the gods, specifically Juno, the goddess of marriage, to keep him in Carthage. Priests prepare to cut open the newly slaughtered heifer and read the future in its entrails.

Object facts

• Title: Dido Sacrifices to Juno, the Goddess of Marriage
• Date: 1679
• Creator attribution: Giovanni Francesco Romanelli (Italian, 1610–1662); Michael Wauters (Flemish, 1679)
• Culture: Belgium, 17th century
• Type: Tapestry
• Technique: tapestry weave: silk and wool
• Dimensions: Overall: 411 x 464.5 cm (161 13/16 x 182 7/8 in.)
• Collection: Textiles
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1915.79.3

A detail from the museum

This tapestry is one from a series of eight that depicts the tragic love story of Dido and Aeneas. They were gifted to the museum for display in the armor court.

Collection credit

Gift of Mrs. Francis F. Prentiss, in memory of Dr. Dudley P. Allen

Further reading listed by the museum

• W. M. M. "Gothic Art." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 6, no. 4 (1919): 67-70.
• Christman, Bruce, "Threads of History", Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland Art: The Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine. Vol. 38 no. 10, December 1998
• BREMER-DAVID, CHARISSA. "French & Company and American Collections of Tapestries, 1907-1959." Studies in the Decorative Arts 11, no. 1 (2003): 38-68.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.