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The Continence of Scipio
Sebastiano Ricci (Italian, 1659–1734)
c. 1706
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 140 × 182 cm (55 × 71 1/2 in.); Framed: 165.1 × 209.6 cm (65 × 82 1/2 in.)
- Culture
- Italy
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Credit line
- Preston O. Morton Memorial Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
This painting depicts a scene from the life of Scipio Africanus, the Roman general who defeated Hannibal in the Battle of Zama (in present-day Tunisia) in 202 BCE. Here Scipio demonstrates his leadership by acting with restraint (“continence”) in refusing to hold a woman as a captive of war. According to the story on which the painting is based, the woman’s fiancé, shown kneeling beside her, was a powerful prince who agreed to a military alliance with Scipio in gratitude for his lenience. The theatrical setting and costumes—the invented military helmets, anachronistically dressed characters, fanciful architecture, and gravity-defying drapery, for example— suggest that the artist’s aims were allegorical rather than historical, intended above all to illustrate for viewers the virtues of compassionate diplomacy.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
