Pyramus and Thisbe

Unknown

Mezzotint on paper of the ill-fated lovers Pyramus and Thisbe published in London between 1680 and 1730. The composition may have been based on an etching by Antonio Tempesta (1555-1630) dated 1606, from of a series illustrating Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Based on an earlier myth, Ovid’s version tells how the pair were forbidden to marry by their feuding parents. Communicating through a crack in the wall, they arrange to meet under a mulberry tree near the tomb of Ninus, an imagined king of Assyria. Thisbe arrives first but flees at the sight of a bloody lioness, tragically leaving her cloak behind. When Pyramus arrives and sees the torn cloak and bloody footprints, he assumes Thisbe has been killed and falls upon his sword. His blood stains the white fruit of the mulberry tree. When Thisbe returns and sees her dead lover, she stabs herself with his sword. A putti watches the scene from his perch on a fountain. In the end, the gods forever change the colour of the fruit as a memorial to their forbidden love. The story is the basis for Romeo and Juliet and is also told in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.