Rutilio Manetti (Siena) Dido and Aeneas ca. 1630 oil on canvas Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
Dido – Properly a surname of the Phoenician goddess of the moon, the wandering Astarte, who was also the goddess of the citadel of Carthage. The name of this goddess and some traits of her story were transferred to Elissa, daughter of of the Tyrian king Mutton (the Belus or Agenor of the Greeks). Elissa came from Tyre to Africa, where she founded Carthage. She was flying from her brother Pygmalion, the murderer of her husband, and paternal uncle Sicharbaal or Sicharbas (called in Greek Acerbas and in Latin Sychaeus). To escape wedding the barbarian king Iarbas she erected a funeral pyre and stabbed herself upon it. According to the later story, followed or invented by Virgil, the tragedy was due to her despair at her desertion by Aeneas.
– from Oskar Seyffert's Dictionary of Classical Mythology, Religion, Literature, and Art, published in German in 1882, translated into English in 1891
Pietro da Cortona (Rome) Saint Martina ca. 1635-40 oil on canvas Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
Antoine Le Nain (France) Three Young Musicians 1630 oil on panel Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
Philippe de Champaigne (France) Saint Augustine ca. 1645-50 oil on canvas Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
Giacomo Cavedone (Bologna) Ascension of Christ ca. 1640 oil on copper Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
Jacob Jordaens (Flanders) Allegory of the Poet ca. 1660 canvas Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
Hendrik Goltzius (Netherlands) Sleeping Danaë being prepared to receive Jupiter 1603 oil on canvas Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
Rembrandt (Netherlands) Portrait of Dirck Jansz. Pesser 1631 oil on panel Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
Antoine Coypel (France) Baptism of Christ ca. 1690 oil on canvas Los Angles County Museum of Art |
Isaac Moillon (France) Sophonisba drinking poison 1653 oil on canvas Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
Johann Rottenhammer (Germany) Suffer the Little Children to come unto Me 1607 oil on copper Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
Georges de La Tour (France) The Magdalene with smoking flame ca. 1638-40 oil on canvas Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
Luca Giordano (Naples) St John the Baptist Preaching ca. 1695 oil on copper Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
Jacques Stella (France) Jacob's Ladder ca. 1650 oil on onyx Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
There was a brief Baroque vogue, as seen above, for composing small paintings on a surface of variegated stone, such as this one on onyx.