Giovanni Battista Tiepolo’s monumental ceiling and wall decorations epitomize the brilliant exuberance of the late Baroque style. Tiepolo enjoyed an international career and was called upon to use his mastery of light, color, and illusion to transform palaces and monasteries in his native Venice and elsewhere in Italy, as well as in Germany and Spain. This painting and three others at the Art Institute, together with smaller decorative panels and a ceiling painting, once graced the cabinet of mirrors, a richly decorated room in the Venetian palace of the powerful Cornaro family. The suite illustrates Torquato Tasso’s popular sixteenth-century epic romance Jerusalem Delivered, which is set in the eleventh century, during the First Crusade, when Western knights sought to take Jerusalem from the Muslims. The canvas captures the moment of Rinaldo’s seduction: the beautiful sorceress Armida has just arrived to divert the sleeping hero from his crusade. Accompanied by her attendant nymph and a cupid figure, she appears like a beautiful mirage, enthroned on a billowing cloud, her drapery and shawl wafting gently behind her. Altough Tasso’s story symbolizes the conflict between love and duty, Tiepolo’s depiction of a magical, bucolic world—enhanced by effervescent colors, luminous atmosphere, and dense, creamy paint—seems to evoke only love’s enchantment.
Date
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Pompeo Molmenti, G. B. Tiepolo: La sua Vita e le sue Opere (Milan, 1909), pp. 140-141, 145-147, 156, ill. (French trans. H. L. de Perera, Tiepolo, La vie et l’œuvre du peintre (1911), pp. 188-189, 308, nos. 186-189, pls. 186-88).
Ugo Ojetti, “Le quattro tele del Tiepolo trafugate”, Emporium 36 (July 1912): pp. 64-69, ill.
Camille Mauclair, “Exposition de Quelques Chefs-d’Oeuvre de G. B. Tiepolo,” in Dix Chefs-d’œuvre de G. B. Tiepolo exposés a la Galeries Ch. Sedelmeyer (Paris, 1912-3), pp. 5-34.
Helen Parker, ed., Arno Art Studies: A Course in Picture Appreciation, vol. 1 (Chicago, 1930), pp. 208, 211, pl. 76, ill.
“This is the Second of a Series of Pages Presenting Notable Works of both Classical and Modern Art as Exemplified in Chicago Collections.” Chicago Tribune, Feb 7, 1932, p. F1.
Rodolfo Pallucchini, ed., Mosta degli incisori Veneti del settecento, second ed. (Venice, 1941), p. 85.
Michael Levey, “Review of Antonio Morassi: A Complete Catalogue of the Paintings of G. B. Tiepolo,” The Art Bulletin 45 (1963), p. 294.
Frederick A. Sweet, “Great Chicago Collectors,” Apollo 84 (1966), pp. 204-206, ill.
Mercedes Precerutti Garberi, affreschi settecenteschi delle ville Venete (Milan, 1968), p. 360.
Aldo Rizzi, The Etchings of the Tiepolos: Complete Edition, trans. Lucia Wildt (London, 1971), p. 318, under no. 146.
George Knox, Catalogue of the Tiepolo Drawings in the Victoria and Albert Museum (London, 1975), p. 80.
National Gallery of Canada, Tiepolo: etchings by the Tiepolos (Ottawa, 1976), pp. 66-67.
John D. Morse, Old Master Paintings in North America (New York, 1979), pp. 255-256.
Claudia Lazzaro, Eighteenth-Century Italian Prints (Stanford, 1980), pp. 28-29.
James N. Wood, Teri J. Edelstein, and Sally Ruth May, The Art Institute of Chicago: The Essential Guide, first ed. (Chicago, 1993), p. 139, ill.
Sotheby’s, Old Master Paintings: October 8, 1993 (New York, 1993), under no. 234.
Giovanni Da Pozzo, ed., La ragione e l’arte: Torquato Tasso e la Repubblica Veneta (Venice, 1995), pp. 235-236.
Nicola Knorn, “Tiepolos »Rinaldo und Armida«-Szenen in der Würzburger Residenz,” Pantheon 53 (1995): pp. 102-105.
Paul Jeromack, “Review of “The Glory of Venice,” National Gallery of Art,” in ArtNews 94 (April 1995), p. 151.
Bernard Aikema and Marguerite Tuijn, Tiepolo in Holland: Works by Giambattista Tiepolo and His Circle in Dutch Collections (Rotterdam, 1996), pp. 152, 154.
Peter O. Krückmann, ed., Der Himmel auf Erden: Tiepolo in Würzburg, vol. I (Munich, 1996), p. 155.
Melania Lunazzi and Isabella di Montegnacco, Giambattista Tiepolo: Guida alle opere nel Veneto (Venice, 1996), p. 103.
Adelheid M. Gealt and George Knox, Domenico Tiepolo: Master Draftsman (Bloomington, Ind., 1996), pp. 41, 110.
Bernard Aikema, Tiepolo and His Circle: Drawings in American Collections (New York, 1996), p. 156.
Giuseppe Barbieri, “Tre storie vicentine di Giambattista Tiepolo,” in Tiepolo e la vita in villa: Arte e cultura nel Settecento veneto, ed. Gian Antonio Cibotto , et al. (Venice, 1996), p. 65.
Adriano Mariuz and Giuseppe Pavanello, “The Interior Decoration of Palaces in Venice: From Baroque Magnificence to Rococo Elegance,” in Venice: Art & Architecture, Volume II, ed. Giandomenico Romanelli (New York, 1997), pp. 628-629, ill.
Adriano Mariuz, “Gli amori di Rinaldo e Armida nell’interpretazione di Tiepolo,” in Formazione e fortuna del Tasso nella cultura della Serenissima: atti del Convegno di studi nel IV centenario della morte di Torquato Tasso (1595-1995): Padova-Venezia, 10-11 novembre 1995, ed. Lucian Borsetto and Bianca Maria Da Rif (Venice, 1997), pp. 212, 214, ill.
Keith Christiansen, “Europe 1700 – 1900,” Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s. 55 (Autumn, 1997), p. 41.
Giandomenico Romanelli and Filippo Pedrocco, Lorenzo Tiepolo e il suo tempo (Milan, 1997), p. 132.
Justyna Guze, Tiepolo i tiepoleschi: w zbiorach polskich: rysunki, ryciny, obrazy (Warsaw, 1997), p. XLVIII.
Peter Partner, God of Battles: Holy Wars of Christianity and Islam (Princeton, 1997), p. 285.
Keith Christiansen, “Tiepolo et sa famille en Europe,” in Histoire Artistique de L’Europe: Le XVIIIe Siècle, vol. 3, ed. Thomas W. Gaehtgens and Krzysztof Pomian (Paris, 1998), p. 195.
Lionello Puppi, ed., Giambattista Tiepolo: Nel Terzo Centenario della Nascita. Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi (Venezia - Vicenza - Udine - Parigi, 29 ottobre - 4 novembre 1996) (Quaderni di Venezia Arti, 4) (Venice, 1998), vol. II, p. 81, ill.
Keith Christiansen, “Tiepolo, Theater, and the Notion of Theatricality,” The Art Bulletin 81 (1999), pp. 684, 692.
Keith Christiansen, “Giambattista Tiepolo. Paris,” Burlington Magazine 141 (1999), p. 245
Art Institute of Chicago, Master Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago, second ed. (Chicago, 1999), p. 36, ill.
Christie’s, Important Old Master Paintings: January 27, 2000 (New York, 2000), under no. 84.
George Knox and Jacques van Schoor, Le Menuet de Lorenzo Tiepolo (Sarreguemines, 2001), p. 19, ill.
Stefano Zuffi, ed., Arte e erotismo (Milan, 2001), pp. 290-291, ill. (English trans. Stephen Sartarelli, Love and the Erotic in Art (2010), p. 366.)
Filippo Pedrocco, Giambattista Tiepolo (Milan, 2002), pp. 248-249, ill.
Filippo Pedrocco, The Art of Venice: From Its Origins to 1797 (Florence, 2002), pp. 162-163.
Jaynie Anderson, Tiepolo’s Cleopatra (Melbourne, 2003), pp. 87, 186.
Julius Bryant, Kenwood: Paintings in the Iveagh Bequest (New Haven, 2003), p. 138.
Art Institute of Chicago, The Essential Guide, revised ed. (Chicago, 2003), p. 138, ill.
Jeannine Guérin Dalle Mese, “Armide découvre Renaud endormi,” in Les belles infidèles de la Jérusalem délivrée: la fortune du poème du Tasse, XVIe-XXe siècle, ed. Raymond Abbrugiati and José Guidi (Marseille, 2004), pp. 160-164, 167, ill.
Sylvie Mamy, L’Allée de Mélisande: Les jardins et la musique (Paris, 2004), pp. 40, 42, 46, 50, plate VII, ill.
Giovanni Careri, Geste d’amour et de guerre: La Jérusalem délivrée, images et affects (Paris, 2005), pp. 201, 203. (Italian trans. Giovanni Careri, La fabbrica degli affetti : La Gerusalemme liberata dai Carracci a Tiepolo, 2010, pp. 181-183.)
Everett Fahy, ed., The Wrightsman Pictures (New Haven, 2005), p. 92.
Alexis Merle du Bourg, “Les grands thèmes tirés de La Jérusalem délivrée du Tasse dans la peinture (XVIe-XIXe siècles): Renaud (chant I-chant XIV),” L’Estampille/L’Object d’Art no. 412 (2006), p. 22, ill.
Alexis Merle du Bourg, “Les grands thèmes tirés de La Jérusalem délivrée du Tasse dans la peinture (XVIe-XIXe siècles): Renaud (chants XV et XVI),” L’Estampille/L’Object d’Art no. 413 (2006), p. 20.
Alexis Merle du Bourg, “Les grands thèmes tirés de La Jérusalem délivrée du Tasse dans la peinture (XVIe-XIXe siècles): Renaud et Armide (fin du chant XVI),” L’Estampille/L’Object d’Art no. 414 (2006), p. 20.
Alexis Merle du Bourg, “Les grands thèmes tirés de La Jérusalem délivrée du Tasse dans la peinture (XVIe-XIXe siècles): Renaud et Armide (chants XVII et XVIII),” L’Estampille/L’Object d’Art no. 415 (2006), p. 20.
Victor M. Cassidy, “Revisiting the Permanent Collection,” Chicago Life Magazine (Summer 2006): p. 20, ill.
Roberto Calasso, Il Rosa Tiepolo (Milan, 2006), pp. 83-84. (English trans. Alastair McEwen, Tiepolo Pink (2010), p. 67.)
Gregg Bordowitz, “Admissions,” in Considering Forgiveness, ed. Aleksandra Wagner and Carin Kuoni (New York, 2007), pp. 231-237, ill.
Nils Büttner, The History of Gardens in Painting, trans. Russell Stockman (New York, 2008), p. 106.
Norma Broude, “G. B. Tiepolo at Valmarana: Gender Ideology in a Patrician Villa of the Settecento,” The Art Bulletin 91 (2009), pp. 160, 181.
Torquato Tasso, The Liberation of Jerusalem (Gerusalemme liberata), trans. Max Wickert (Oxford, 2009), p. xix.
Charles Brockden Brown, Ormond; or The Secret Witness, ed. Philip Barnard and Stephen Shapiro (Indianapolis, 2009), p. 358.
Art Institute of Chicago, The Essential Guide, third ed. (Chicago, 2009), p. 200, ill.
Art Institute of Chicago, Master Paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago, third ed. (Chicago, 2009), p. 36, ill.
Hardy George, ed., La Serenissima: Eighteenth-Century Venetian Art from North American Collections (Oklahoma City, 2010), pp. 23-25, ill., 27-28.
Douglas Druick, The Art Institute of Chicago: The Essential Guide, fourth ed. (Chicago, 2013), p. 214, ill.
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].
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.
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