View of a Port city

In 209 BC the young Roman general Publius Cornelius Scipio captured New Carthage, the Carthaginian stronghold on the coast of Spain that is now Cartagena. The historian Livy tells what happened next. Among the captives brought to him was a young woman of great beauty, already promised to a Celtiberian prince. Scipio returned her unharmed to her bridegroom, and when her parents offered a ransom, he handed the gold over as a wedding gift. That is the small scene in the foreground of this harbour view, and the setting suits it, since New Carthage was a port. Around 1600 the story was a favourite example of how a victor ought to behave. Brueghel painted it on a sheet of copper 72 by 106 centimetres, many times the size of the little plates in the display cases of this same room. It came to Munich in 1806 from the electors' picture gallery in Düsseldorf.