# Hero and Leander [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [FETTI, Domenico]() - Date: 1601-1650 - Technique: Oil on wood, 42 x 96 cm ## Commentary According to legend, Leander, a youth of Abydos, a town on the Asian shore of the Hellespont, used to swim across the waters at night to Sestos on the opposite side to meet his lover Hero, a priestess of Aphrodite. She would guide him by holding up a lighted torch. One stormy night Leander was drowned. Hero in her despair threw herself into the sea. The story is related in this form by the Greek poet Museus \(4th-5th cent. A.D.\). Ovid tells of the lovers, omitting their death. The theme is found in Italian and Netherlandish painting, especially of the 17th century: the drowned Oleander is borne away by Needs as Hero plunges to her death into the sea. ## Related artworks - [David \(detail\)]() - [David]() - [David with the Head of Goliath]() - [Ecce Homo]() - [Flight to Egypt]() - [Margherita Gonzaga Receiving the Model of the Church of St Ursula \(detail\)]() - [Margherita Gonzaga Receiving the Model of the Church of St Ursula]() - [Melancholy \(detail\)]() - [Melancholy]() - [Melancholy]() - [Moses before the Burning Bush]() - [Parable of the Good Samaritan]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()