Armida Gazes on the Sleeping Rinaldo

Currently not on view

Armida Gazes on the Sleeping Rinaldo

c. 1785

Giuseppe Cades (Italian (active Rome), 1750–1799)

Giuseppe Cades absorbed inspiration from various members of the international coterie of artists working in Rome in the 1770s and 1780s to form a style that metamorphosed standard classical subjects into paintings and drawings of distinctive originality. This highly finished work illustrates a scene from Torquato Tasso's epic poem Gerusalemme liberata (Jerusalem Delivered) in which the sorceress Armida, who has seduced and enslaved various heroic crusaders, has vowed to kill their liberator, the Christian knight Rinaldo. In collusion with a mysterious and beautiful nymph whose occupation is to lure youths into an enchanted sleep, Armida approaches Rinaldo, but when she gazes on him and sees how handsome he is, she is stricken with love herself.

Currently not on view

Object Details

Title:

Armida Gazes on the Sleeping Rinaldo
Illustration of book 14.61–67 in Gerusalemme liberata (Jerusalem Delivered) by Torquato Tasso (Italian, 1544–1595), Parma: 1581

Date:

c. 1785

Artist:

Giuseppe Cades (Italian (active Rome), 1750–1799)

Medium:

Colored chalks on laid paper

Dimensions:

Sheet: 12 3/8 × 17 3/8 inches (31.5 × 44.1 cm)

Classification:

Drawings

Credit Line:

Purchased with the Henry P. McIlhenny Fund in memory of Frances P. McIlhenny, with funds contributed by George M. Cheston, and with the Lola Downin Peck Fund and the Carl and Laura Zigrosser Collection (by exchange), 1990

Accession Number:

1990-49-1

Geography:

Made in Rome, Italy, Europe

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Currently not on view