This oil painting on an oak panel is originally from Joensuu Manor in Halikko. At the back of the wood panel, someone attached a cutting from a printed list of the manor’s art works from 1919, and in old photographs the painting, and another painting it was paired with – Kultaisen vasikan palvonta (‘The Worship of the Golden Calf’), can be seen in the so-called small library. The paintings were hung high above the bookshelves, and they likely belonged to Gustaf Mauritz Armfelt (1757–1814), who once owned the manor.

To the left in the painting is the luxuriously dressed Dido, Queen of Carthage, sat atop a horse, holding on her right arm a hunting falcon, while Aeneas, clad in a breast plate and red cloak, is helping her down from the horse. In the background on the right, two riders can be seen hunting a deer. In the midst of the clouds at the top right is the goddess Juno, with her sacred animal – a peacock.

What is the story behind what is happening in the painting?

This painting, which dates to the mid-1600s, was inspired by a poem by Roman writer Virgil (70–19 BCE), which tells the story of the Trojan war hero Aeneas. Aeneas fled from the Trojan war on ships with his closest men and family members. The goddess Juno, who in the war was on the Greeks’ side against the Trojans, caused some of the ships that fled Troy to sink in a storm. However, some were saved, partially thanks to Aeneas’s trusted captain Achates. After the journey, which took several years, Aeneas and his companions arrived at Carthage, on the coast of what is now Tunisia.

Upon reaching the shore, Aeneas first saw one deer, and then a whole herd, and so Aeneas and Achates decided to hunt them. In the background of the painting, on the right, the two riders chasing the fleeing deer are intended to depict Aeneas and Achates. Later during the same hunt, Dido and Aeneas find themselves caught up in a storm, when Juno summons rain and hail. They are separated from the rest of the hunting party and seek shelter from the storm in a cave. The hunting dogs on the right are a reference to the interrupted hunt, while Dido carries a hunting falcon on her arm. Aeneas’s clothing evokes Antiquity, when the whole story is set, while Dido’s clothing is partially a figment of the painter’s imagination and partially relatively close to that of the time of the painting, i.e. the mid-17th century, so the painting can be regarded as set in its own time period. The cherubs busy at the couple’s feet hint at the romantic mood of the situation. If the viewer wishes, the painting can be seen as also referencing the future: the ruins in the background could be seen to be referring to the Romans destroying the whole city centuries later.

Conservator Henni Reijonen found a painting by 17th century Dutch artist Theodoor van Thulden depicting the same theme, which helped establish the subject of the piece in Armfelt’s collection. Theodoor van Thulden (1606–1669) was born in ’s-Hertogenbosch. In around 1621, he moved to Antwerp, and for the period 1631–1634 and again in 1647 he worked in Paris. From 1635, Thulden lived and worked once again in Antwerp and in 1637–1638 also in Madrid. In Antwerp, he worked with the likes of Peter Paul Reubens and in the 1640s for the city of ’s-Hertogenbosch. In the middle of the decade, Thulden moved with his wife back to the city of his birth, which was also ultimately where he died. His works spanned a broad spectrum from altarpieces to mythological and historical themes and portraits.

In terms of its composition and details, Dido ja Aineias palaavat metsältä (‘Dido and Aeneas return from the forest’) from Armfelt’s collection is so close to Theodoor van Thulden’s painting on the same theme, that it is reasonable to assume that the artist who painted it was familiar with the painting in question. However, the painting by the as yet unknown artist is not a copy of Thulden’s piece, but rather a new composition on the same theme.

Gustaf Mauritz Armfelt, who was not particularly interested in art on a personal level, and did not collect it for the sake of the art itself, probably received the painting as a gift from a close friend the Duke of Courland, with whose family Armfelt stayed as a guest for a short period in the early 1800s. Armfelt received many gifts from the duke, and the reason this painting in particular was chosen as a gift may have been very personal: the romantic nature of the painting was perhaps a subtle hint to the affair that began between the duke’s daughter, Duchess of Saga Princess Wilhelmine, and Armfelt in 1801.

Jouni Kuurne

Link to Thulden’s painting:
https://www.meisterdrucke.ie/fine-art-prints/Theodoor-van-Thulden/282053/Dido-and-Aeneas.html