The Trojan Women Setting Fire to Their Fleet
ca. 1643
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
41 3/8 x 59 7/8 in. (105.1 x 152.1 cm)
Classification
Paintings
Department
European Paintings
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Fletcher Fund, 1955
Accession Number
55.119
Tags
Art Historical Context
In Claude Lorrain's oil on canvas *The Trojan Women Setting Fire Their Fleet* (ca. 1643), we witness a dramatic moment from Virgil's *Aeneid*. Despairing Trojan women, weary of their endless voyage after Troy's fall, ignite fleet to halt Aeneas's journey to Italy—a pivotal episode in Book 5, symbolizing divine intervention and human frailty. Lorrain, a leading 17th-century French painter based in Rome, transforms this myth into a luminous seascape, blending historical narrative with idealized nature. Lorrain's Baroque style shines through his innovative use of light and atmosphere, creating a...
About the Artist
Claude Lorrain (Claude Gellée) · 1604–1682
Claude Gellée was born around 1600 in the village of Chamagne in the Duchy of Lorraine, from which he would take the professional name by which history knows him: Claude Lorrain. Orphaned young, he traveled south to Rome as a teenager, eventually finding his way into the Naples workshop of Goffredo Wals before apprenticing with the Roman landscapist and fresco painter Agostino Tassi around 1622. F...