(Naples 1602–1643)
The Death of Dido,
oil on canvas, 128 x 103 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private European collection

We are grateful to Riccardo Lattuada for suggesting the attribution after examining the present painting in the original and for his help in cataloguing this lot.

Dido commits suicide by falling on Aeneas’ sword, while her funerary pyre, indicated by the flames at lower left, is already lit; the sails on the horizon of the marine landscape on the right allude to the swift departure of her beloved Aeneas from Carthage, who had abandoned her in order to fulfil his destiny as the founder of Rome.

This previously unpublished painting is an important addition to the oeuvre of Diana De Rosa, one of the very few female artists active in Naples during the first half of the seventeenth century. Her mastery of composition and her care in the execution of figurative painting are clearly demonstrated in this work.

The painting can be compared with a group of stylistically consistent works that have been assigned to Diana de Rosa, who is considered to have painted the Stories of the Virgin in Santa Maria della Pietà dei Turchini, Naples. To these, another three canvases representing Marian Stories can be connected: one is in San Giovanni Maggiore, Naples and another two in the Museo Diocesano, Naples (see F. Petrelli, Una luce su Annella de Rosa, in: Ricerche sul ‘600 napoletano. Saggi e documenti 2008, Naples 2009, pp. 87-92). Furthermore, several other works have been given to Diana de Rosa, generating a constantly evolving corpus of work. Recently three new paintings of significance, attributed by Riccardo Lattuada, have been offered by Dorotheum, Vienna: a Lucretia (sale 23 October 2018, lot 58), a Saint Agatha (sale 22 October 2019, lot 57), an impressive Samson and Delilah (sale 10 November 2021, lot 5).

The Lucretia is probably the closest work to the present painting with a similar red drape in the background, as well as the handling of the figure and the hands. In the present work, however, the application of paint here appears freer. As such, Lattuada dates this work to the final years of Diana’s production, when Baroque tendencies began to infiltrate the works of the strictest exponents of Roman-Bolognese Classicism. In this composition a neo-Venetian taste is clearly discernible in the iridescent drapery and the particular attention to precious details: the pearls, diadems, and the gold edging of robes.

The splendour of the female model and the treatment of her clothes can be compared to the style of Pacecco de Rosa (1606–1656), Diana’s brother, but here they embody a proto-Baroque vigour that lends a dramatic charge, which appears more accentuated than Pacecco’s inventions. Dido’s features are very similar to those of many of the female figures depicted by Pacecco, even the queen’s gesture of desperation is reminiscent of the Susanna and the Elders by Pacecco in the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte, Naples.

On account of her talent Diana De Rosa achieved notable success as an artist. She trained with Pacecco in the studio of Massimo Stanzione (1585-1656), who had a close, though platonic, relationship with her, for this reason she was also known as Annella di Massimo. According to the biographer Bernardo de’ Dominici, Diana was murdered by her husband, the painter Agostino Beltrano, who was jealous of the close relationship between Diana and Stanzione, however it is likely that she died of illness in 1643, at the age of 41.

The present painting may have been intended as a pair to the following painting (lot 68)