1744
oil
canvas
From the collection of Art Institute of Chicago
Armida Encounters the Sleeping Rinaldo is a 1744 oil by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, a Baroque work, held at Art Institute of Chicago.
A sorceress in a pink gown leans over a sleeping knight in golden armor. Around them, putti—little winged babies—play with his sword and shield. This scene comes from a 16th-century poem about the Crusades. The knight, Rinaldo, is supposed to be fighting, but Armida has enchanted him into love instead. Tiepolo painted it for a grand Venetian palace, where it hung with other scenes from the same story. If you like this, look up *glazing*—the thin, transparent layers Tiepolo used to make colors glow.
This painting likely once graced a large hall at the Palazzo Corner in Venice along with several others. The suite illustrates the ill-fated love of Armida and Rinaldo from Torquato Tasso’s 1581 epic poem Gerusalemme liberata (Jerusalem Delivered). The story takes place during the First Crusade, an eleventh-century military expedition in which Christian knights attempted to seize control of Jerusalem and check the power of the Muslims who ruled the city. In this scene, the beautiful sorceress Armida encounters the knight Rinaldo as he sleeps and decides to carry him away on her cloud-borne…
Possibly one of four scenes from Tasso made for the 'gabinetto degli specchi' of the Palazzo Corner a San Polo, Venice [according to inventories and other documents discussed by Romanelli 1998]. Count Giovanni Serbelloni, Venice in 1838; by descent, until possibly 1886 [Molmenti 1911 and Knox 1978]. Giulio Cartier, Genoa by 1908 [Malaquzzi Valeri 1908]; Sedelmeyer Gallery, Paris, in 1912 [Ojetti 1912]; James Deering (d. 1925), Vizcaya, from 1913 [information sheet in curatorial file]; bequeathed,1925.
Art Institute of Chicago, Century of Progress, June 1 – November 1, 1933, no. 156. Art Institute of Chicago, Century of Progress, June 1 – November 1, 1934, no. 334. Art Institute of Chicago, Loan Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings, and Prints by the two Tiepolos, February 4 – March 6, 1938, no. 6. Venice, Ca' Rezzonico, Giambattista Tiepolo, September 5-December 15, 1996, cat. 17a; New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, January 24 – April 27, 1997 [New York only].
Read the full account in the museum source.
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, also known as Giambattista Tiepolo, was an Italian painter and printmaker from the Republic of Venice who painted in the Rococo style, considered an important member of the 18th-century Venetian school.
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