Episodes from the Aeneid

Dateca. 1470

Maker Paolo Uccello Italian (Florence), 1397-1475

Label TextAs the front panel of a cassone, a storage chest which sat on the floor (see image), this painting was not intended by the artist to be scrutinized at eye level. Yet despite its lowly position, Uccello used costly materials and a high level of workmanship to achieve exquisite decorative effects. The panel shows a series of episodes from Virgil's poem about the founding of Rome. At left, Aeneas is greeted by King Evander of Arcadia on the banks of the Tiber River. At right, Aeneas and his Trojans battle the Latin troops and their allies led by the chaste huntress Camilla, who will die in this battle. Aeneas and several other figures wear winged helmets of gold-a Renaissance fantasy with no resemblance to ancient armor.

Muse, tell me why the Queen of Heaven
Was so aggrieved, her godhead so offended,
That she forced a man of faultless devotion
To endure so much hardship. Can there be
Anger so great in the hearts of gods on high?

– The Aeneid, 1.12-16

In his rendering of scenes from Virgil's epic poem The Aeneid, which tells of the founding of Rome, Paolo Uccello presents a colorful world of galleons, pageantry and a bloody battle in which virtuous female warriors are defeated by armored soldiers. The painting originally adorned a storage chest—or cassone—made in honor of a wedding uniting two powerful Florentine families. It was common for cassoni to be decorated with scenes from epic narratives, which had enough dramatic episodes to cover the extensive surface of the long panel. Because the paintings were not seen at eye level, artists often sacrificed narrative clarity for decorative variety. They frequently chose themes that commented on marriage and civic duty.

Object number61.173

Provenance(Possibly Mameli, Rome); Count Alessandro Contini Bonacossi (1878-1955), Florence; sold to Samuel H. Kress (1863-1955), New York, June 18, 1937, as Paolo Uccello and Assistants; gift to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, 1939 - deaccessioned 1952; returned to Kress; gift to Seattle Art Museum, since 1952, accessioned 1961

Photo CreditPhoto: Paul Macapia

Exhibition HistoryWashington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, 1941-1951. Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Italian Art: Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952. Text by William Suida and Sherman Lee, pp.5-6. Cat. no. 10. Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, 2500 Years of Italian Art, Nov. 10 - Dec. 8 1958. Cat. no. 33. Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Medieval, Renaissance & Baroque Galleries, Dec. 24, 1998 - Dec. 24, 1999. Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Renaissance Art in Focus: Neri di Bicci and Devotional Painting in Italy, 2004. Text by Nicholas Dorman and Elizabeth Darrow. No cat. no., pp. 8-9, reproduced fig. 1. Published ReferencesIshikawa, Chiyo. The Samuel H. Kress Collection at the Seattle Art Museum. Seattle, Wash.: Seattle Art Museum, 1997; fig. 33-34; pp. 53-54. Melli, Lorenza. "Nuove indagini sui siegni di Paolo Uccello Agli Uffizi: disegno sottostante, tecnica, funzione." Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 42. Bd., H. 1 (1998): pp. 1-39; pg. 35, reproduced fig. 32. Seattle Art Museum: Bridging Cultures. London, England: Scala Publishers Ltd. for the Seattle Art Museum, 2007; pp. 56-57. Zach von Naumann, “From Renaissance to Modern. A Comparison,” Paper, Seattle Pacific University (2012). Munich, Germany. GRIN Verlag, http://www.grin.com/en/e-book/298320/from-renaissance-to-modern-a-comparison Ishikawa, Chiyo. "Seattle Art Museum." In Italian Treasures in the U.S.: An Itinerary of Art. Edited by Renato Miracco. Rome. Italy: Gangemi Editore International Publishing, 2015; p. 200, reproduced p. 203. Franklin, Margaret. “Imagining and Reimagining Gender: Boccaccio’s Teseida delle nozze d’Emilia and Its Renaissance Visual Legacy.” Humanities 5, no. 1 (2016): p. 35, reproduced fig. 4.

Credit LineSamuel H. Kress Collection

Dimensions16 1/8 x 61 1/2 in. (41 x 156.2 cm)

MediumEgg tempera, oil, and gold on wood panel