Francesco Hayez is the greatest exponent of Romanticism painting in Italy. His fame is entrusted to his paintings of historical subjects, often full of patriotic meanings or alluding to the Italian political situation; but the portraits and sensual female figures also aroused great enthusiasm. The canvas - commissioned by Antonio Frizzoni, member of a family active in Bergamo in the textile sector - depicts the culminating episode of a very popular story in the early nineteenth century: Giorgio Cornaro informs his sister Caterina, queen of Cyprus, that the Republic of Venice has decided to dismiss her and announces her future confinement in the castle of Asolo. The scene, constructed through a calibrated study of the light and the poses of the characters, has a highly theatrical tone, typical of Hayez's painting.