Death of Dido

In Book Four of Virgil's Aeneid, Dido, the queen who founded Carthage, is abandoned when Aeneas sails for Italy on Jupiter's orders. She has a pyre built, lays his effigy on the bed they shared and kills herself with the sword he gave her. Rubens follows the poem closely here. The bearded head resting behind her on the bed is that image of Aeneas, a detail the Louvre calls rare in paintings of the story. The pyre is only hinted at, by the timber on the floor and a torch. The canvas was still in Rubens's house when he died in 1640. In the 20th century it belonged to Carlos de Beistegui, a Mexican-born collector, who gave his paintings to the French state in 1942 while keeping them for life. They reached the Louvre in 1953 and still hang together in one room.