Art, literature & history
The Power of Women: The Poet Virgil Suspended in a Basket
c. 1512
- Dating
- Approximate date range
- Held at
- The Cleveland Museum of Art
- Medium
- woodcut
- Collection no.
- 1935.116
- Attribution
- By the artist
- Image rights
- CC0 1.0License details
Lucas van Leyden. The Power of Women: The Poet Virgil Suspended in a Basket. The Cleveland Museum of Art. CC0 1.0. Compressed full-frame reproduction.
Collection: The Cleveland Museum of Art
About this artwork
The Power of Women: The Poet Virgil Suspended in a Basket — Lucas van Leyden. c. 1512.
Medium: woodcut. Dimensions: .
Collection record: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland. Museum connection according to this source; current display unverified.
This woodcut is from a series depicting the power of women, a popular early 16th-century theme. The series highlights a woman’s capacity to use beauty, charm, and ruse to thwart even the cleverest men. Here, Van Leyden illustrated the cunning of the Roman emperor’s daughter. According to legend, the poet Virgil fell in love with the maiden, but she objected and punished him for his impudence. After promising to raise Virgil to her bedroom window in a basket, she left him hanging halfway. The printmaker omitted the emperor’s daughter from the scene but added the woman advising her son against such folly.
Source: official collection record. Metadata selected and normalized by Artline from the source export, accessed 10 September 2026; no museum endorsement. Reproduction rights are separate.
Location checked Sep 10, 2026. This does not indicate whether the work is on display.