Angelica Resting Under a Tree, from Orlando Furioso

Prints and Drawings

1810/13

Felice Giani
Italian, 1758-1823

What at first glance appears to be a landscape is in fact a scene from the enduringly popular chivalric romance, Orlando Furioso (Orlando in Frenzy), first published in 1516 by the Italian poet Ludovico Ariosto.
One of the poem’s central characters, the beautiful princess Angelica, is being pursued by several enamored knights (one of whom is just visible in the middle distance), and has stopped to rest in a leafy grove beside a brook. Easy to miss, Angelica lies naked in the left foreground spot-lit by a patch of sunlight (really just the exposed white of the paper).
Giani’s rapid-fire, staccato pen strokes give the sheet a feeling of vibrant energy and movement akin to the fast pacing of the poem.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: Felice Giani
Title: Angelica Resting Under a Tree, from Orlando Furioso
Place: Italy (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1810–1813
Medium: Pen and brown ink, and brush and brown and gray wash, over graphite, on ivory wove paper
Dimensions: 34.7 × 51.5 cm (13 11/16 × 20 5/16 in.)
Credit Line: Suzanne Searle Dixon Endowment
Reference Number: 1991.219
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/113989/manifest.json

The Art Institute of Chicago, “Gods and (Super)heroes: Drawing in an Age of Revolution”, November 16, 2017 - April 1, 2018.

Sold by David Tunick, New York, to the Art Institute, 1991.

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Angelica Resting Under a Tree, from Orlando Furioso

Currently Off View

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.