Dido Founding Carthage

Dido Founding Carthage, painted in 1721 and now in the Hermitage, draws on the Aeneid's account of the Phoenician queen who cleverly bargained for as much land as could be covered by a single ox-hide, then cut it into strips to encompass a large area—the founding myth of Carthage. The subject allowed Pittoni to stage a scene of civic ceremony and feminine authority that resonated with the enlightened absolutism of early eighteenth-century European courts. At only around twenty-five years of age, Pittoni was already executing ambitious multi-figure compositions that demonstrate his rapid assimilation of Venetian grandiosità and his awareness of Roman history painting traditions. The figure of Dido presiding over the ceremonial measurement of her new territory provided an occasion for the display of rich orientalizing costumes, architectural splendor, and the variety of human types that Rococo narrative painting demanded. The Russian imperial court, which acquired this work, valued history paintings that combined classical authority with painterly refinement—qualities Pittoni's Venice was uniquely positioned to supply. The early date makes this an important document of Pittoni's formation as a history painter.

The composition radiates outward from the enthroned Dido figure, with subsidiary figures and architectural elements framing and reinforcing her central authority. Pittoni's early handling here is somewhat tighter than his later work, with more careful outline drawing beneath the paint visible in pentiment passages. Architectural settings are rendered with considerable spatial ambition, though the figure-to-space relationship shows the controlled vocabulary of his maturing style.