Landscape with Pyramus and Thisbe

This painting depicts a story from Metamorphoses, a poem written by the Roman poet Ovid in the 1st century. Pyramus and Thisbe were two lovers who decided to elope. When Thisbe arrived at their meeting place she was frightened away by a lioness, still visible in the background. Pyramus found her blood-stained garment and, thinking she had been killed, committed suicide in his grief. Returning to find him dead, Thisbe also killed herself. Dughet was apprenticed to his brother-in-law Nicolas Poussin, who greatly influenced his work.