The Trojans Repairing Their Ships in Sicily

The painting was commissioned around 1520–1521 by Alfonso I d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, for the Camerino d’Alabastro in the Castello Estense. It remained in the Este family through his son Ercole II and grandson Alfonso II until the rooms were dismantled in 1598. By 1608 it was in the collection of Cardinal Scipione Borghese in Rome, where it stayed through inheritance within the Borghese family until at least 1693.

After a period of obscurity, it resurfaced in Madrid by 1847 in the possession of José de Madrazo y Agudo, and later possibly his son Federico. It was purchased around 1861 by José de Salamanca. In the 20th century, the canvas, which had been cut from a larger composition, passed through Hans Wendland, Kunsthandel AG, and Julius Böhler before being acquired by Count Alessandro Contini-Bonacossi in 1927.

The Samuel H. Kress Foundation bought it in 1936 and gifted it to the National Gallery of Art in 1939.

The painting is held in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., as part of the Samuel H. Kress Collection, to which it was gifted in 1939. It was originally one of ten canvases from the Camerino d'Alabastro of Alfonso I d'Este. In 2023, the work was temporarily reunited with its separated counterpart for the exhibition 'Dosso Dossi. Il fregio di Enea' at the Galleria Borghese in Rome.

The painting belongs to a series of ten Aeneid-themed canvases by Dosso Dossi and his brother Battista for the Camerino d'Alabastro of Alfonso I d'Este, a key Ferrarese court commission of the early 1520s. Its rare iconography initially puzzled critics, who variously speculated it depicted a generic legendary scene or the Argonauts' landing. Scholarship later identified the episode as Aeneas and Achates after their shipwreck on the Libyan coast from the Aeneid Book I. The work's place in art history is secured by its role in the Camerino frieze, a sophisticated literary and mythological program of the Ferrarese Renaissance, and by its later passage through the Borghese and Kress collections.

The painting's legacy is notably tied to its reemergence in the 21st century. Originally part of a ten-canvas frieze of the Aeneid by Dosso and his brother Battista, it was later cut in two during the 20th century. In 2023, the canvas was physically reunited for the exhibition 'Dosso Dossi: Il fregio di Enea' at the Galleria Borghese in Rome, where it was displayed alongside its other half (now NGA 2021.6.1).

This exhibition highlighted the series’ scholarly importance and restored the painting’s original compositional unity, underscoring its continued influence as a key example of Ferrarese Renaissance court art.

Dosso Dossi's "The Trojans Repairing Their Ships in Sicily" is an oil on canvas painting. It depicts a scene from Virgil's Aeneid, showing Aeneas's followers mending their vessels on a rocky coast. Despite its compact size, the work is rich in detail and vibrant color, characteristic of Dossi's style. The composition draws the viewer into a narrative moment of recovery and preparation.