Portrait medal of Dido, Queen of Carthage (obverse); A View of Carthage (reverse)

Alessandro Cesati

ca. 1550 · Bronze (Copper alloy with light brown patina). · Robert Lehman Collection

This medal belongs to a series depicting famous figures from antiquity. Queen of Carthage in North Africa, Dido is best known as a heroine of the Aeneid, the epic poem written by the Roman poet Virgil in the first century b.c., in which she falls in love with the Trojan hero Aeneas. The reverse depicts a view of the walled Carthage, with three galleys lying in harbor in front of the city.

Artist

Alessandro Cesati

Date

ca. 1550

Medium

Bronze (Copper alloy with light brown patina).

Department

Robert Lehman Collection

Credit line

Robert Lehman Collection, 1975