The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 9, 2025

Dido

c. 1525

Aurelio Lombardo

(Italian, 1501–1563)
Italy
marble
Overall: 50 x 26.5 x 14 cm (19 11/16 x 10 7/16 x 5 1/2 in.)
Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund 2021.2
Location: 117A Italian Renaissance

Did You Know?

Dido’s nudity and hairstyle are allusions to ancient Greek images of Aphrodite.

Description

Artists customarily portrayed Dido as a forlorn lover abandoned by the Trojan hero, Aeneas, but here she is a conquering queen. Dido draws aside an oxhide curtain, a reference to the mythical founding of Carthage (in modern-day Tunisia, North Africa), when she was given an oxhide to demarcate granted land. By cutting it into thin strips she was able to encircle the future city. Dido was likely created for display in a studiolo, a place of study featuring refined works of art appreciated by humanist scholars and aficionados during the Renaissance.
  • Private Collection, England
    June 30, 1988
    Henry Duke & Son, Dorchester, England
    Thomas Agnew & Sons, London, in association with Daniel Katz, Ltd., London
    Barbara Piasecka Johnson (1937-2013), Princeton, Sobótka, Poland
    December, 14, 1999
    [Christie's Sale: Collection of Barbara Piasecka Johnson, December, 14, 1999, London, lot 74]
    Hester Diamond (1928-2020), New York, NY
    January 29, 2021
    [Sotheby's Sale: The Collection of Hester Diamond Part I, January 29, 2021, New York, NY, lot 120]
    2021-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Schulz, Anne Markham, and Giammaria Mosca. Giammaria Mosca Called Padovano: A Renaissance Sculptor in Italy and Poland. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998. no. 1, p. 61
    Christie, Manson & Woods. European Sculpture. 1999. lot 74
    Luchs, A. "The London Woman in Anguish, attributed to Christoforo Solari: Erotic Pathos in a Renaissance Bust," Artibus et Historiae no. 47 (2003). pp. 158, 159, 163 and 172, fig. 12
    Lombardo, Antonio, and Matteo Ceriana. Gli Este a Ferrara: il camerino di alabastro : Antonio Lombardo e la scultura all'antica. Cinisello Balsamo, Milano: Silvana, 2004. pp. 269 and 271
    Sarchi, Alessandra. Antonio Lombardo. Venezia: Istituto veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti, 2008. p. 372, pl. 162
    Luchs, Alison, Tullio Lombardo, and Adriana Augusti Ruggeri. Tullio Lombardo and Venetian High Renaissance Sculpture. Washington: National Gallery of Art, 2009. p. 120
    Kurkow, Cory. “Defiant Dido: Shaking up the Italian Renaissance sculpture collection.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 61, no. 3 (Summer 2021): 34-35. Reproduced: P. 35; Mentioned: P. 34.
  • Long Term Loan, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (September – December 2006)
  • {{cite web|title=Dido|url=false|author=Aurelio Lombardo|year=c. 1525|access-date=09 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2021.2