The Death of Dido (1679): Art, History and Details

The Death of Dido (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:

Driven by despair, and to her sister's dismay, Dido throws herself onto a pyre of Aeneas's bed and clothes and pierces herself with his sword. Moved by pity, Jupiter's wife, Juno, sends Iris from heaven to cut a lock of Dido's hair and sacrifice it to the underworld so that Dido may die. Aeneas's fleet sails away in the distance.

Object facts

• Title: The Death of Dido
• 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: 414 x 466.5 cm (163 x 183 11/16 in.)
• Collection: Textiles
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1915.79.8

A detail from the museum

Depicting the tragic love story of Dido and Aeneas, this tapestry is one of eight 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.
• 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.