Death of Sophonisbe

Death of Sophonisbe, dated 1665 and in the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon, depicts the Carthaginian noblewoman Sophonisbe who, rather than be taken as a Roman prisoner, drank poison sent by her Numidian husband Masinissa. The subject combined classical historical drama — drawn from Livy and other ancient sources — with the appealing spectacle of female heroism and self-sacrifice. 'Dying heroine' subjects were increasingly popular in the later seventeenth century as painters explored classical antiquity for non-religious alternatives to the martyrdom subject. By 1665 Preti was in Malta, but maintained an active production of easel paintings for European clients. The Lyon museum, one of France's major regional collections, holds this work among its Italian Baroque holdings assembled from the eighteenth century onward.

The dying heroine composition demands that Preti render the moment of physical collapse while maintaining the figure's moral dignity — Sophonisbe's death is voluntary and heroic, not simply the extinction of a body. He achieves this through postural control: the figure not yet fully collapsed but already departing, supported or beginning to sink. The poison cup — instrument of the voluntary death — receives specific visual attention as the scene's narrative prop. Color in the clothing and drapery maintains rich Baroque warmth even as the figure's face pales.