Rinaldo turning in Shame from the Magic Shield

Artist: Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (Italian, 1696 - 1770)

Original Dimensions: 63 1/2" x 21 1/8"

Location: National Gallery of Art, London

About Artwork: (About 1740-6) "This painting shows Rinaldo, a Christian knight who has been enchanted by the Saracen sorceress Armida. He turns away from his own reflection in a magic shield that has been given to him by one of his companions to break the spell. Rinaldo later gives up his love for Armida and escapes. The scene is taken from an episode in Torquato Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered, a sixteenth-century epic poem about the First Crusade, a Christian military campaign to recapture Jerusalem from Islamic rule. Rinaldo’s clothing and armour are inspired by the Classical world: the scallop shell at his waist was, in antiquity, the attribute of Venus, the goddess of love. Painted during the 1740s, at the height of Tiepolo’s career, this is one of four pictures in a series that once decorated a room in the Palazzo Cornaro on the Campo San Polo, Venice. The other paintings, also in the National Gallery’s collection, depict figures inspired by Tasso’s poem." - (National Gallery of Art, London)