La Mort de Didon

This painting was a sales pitch that failed. In 1631 Cardinal Bernardino Spada wanted to show off Guercino's talent to Marie de' Medici, the exiled queen mother of France, hoping to arrange a grand commission and even a journey to Paris for the painter. The subject was chosen to impress her: Dido, queen of Carthage, taking her own life on a pyre after Aeneas sails away, his ships already shrinking on the horizon behind her. Then Marie de' Medici's fortunes collapsed for good and she fled north, and the whole plan fell apart. No French commission, no Paris. Spada bought the picture himself, for 400 scudi, and it has stayed in his family's Roman palace ever since, which is why you find it today in the Galleria Spada.