Dido's despair, caricature making fun of Horatio Nelson and Lady Emma Hamilton's relationship, 1801 (engraving)

Dido's despair. Caricature that ridicules the relationship between Horatio Nelson (1758-1805) and Lady Emma Hamilton (1765-1815), depicting them as the heroes of the poet Virgil (70-19 BC), Aeneas, piqued by the gods and by her keen sense of duty, abandoned Dido in Carthage (Tunisia) to go found Rome (Italy), as did Nelson, after his victory To the The Battle of the Nile (or of Aboukir, Egypt, 1798) rested in Naples (Italy) in the home of Lord and Lady Hamilton, then Nelson and Emma finally returned to England, during the seventh month of her pregnancy, in November 1800, when Nelson, promoted Rear Admiral, set off again at sea on January 17, 1801. The drawing refers to the departure of Nelson, whose fleet can be seen through the window and describes Didon, obese and desperate, of the departure of her sailor to fight the French and lamenting his fate abandoned among the antiquities, referring to her old husband, who sleeps lying on the bed. Various grotesque and suggestive objects litter the bedroom, alluding to the lovers' relationship and reinforcing the comparison with Virgil's couple. Etching in colors, published by H.Humphrey on February 6, 1801, by James Gillray (1757-1815).