Rinaldo and the Magus of Ascalon

European Painting and Sculpture

1742/45

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
Italian, 1696–1770

The fourth and final large narrative canvas from Giovanni Battista Tiepolo’s decorative suite takes place as Rinaldo rejoins the crusader army. As a consequence, it stresses the moral element of the story of Rinaldo and Armida. The boat bringing the knight from Armida’s island seems to have just deposited him and his companions, Carlo and Ubaldo, on the coast of Palestine. Here the magician of Ascalon uses Rinaldo’s shield to conjure up the heroic deeds of his ancestors, urging him to live up to their examples. Rinaldo appears more confident and mature than he does in the earlier canvases in the sequence, perhaps to serve as an example to the young member of the Cornaro family for whom the salon was splendidly redecorated.

Currently Off View: European Painting and Sculpture

Artist: Giambattista Tiepolo
Title: Rinaldo and the Magus of Ascalon
Origin: Italy
Date: 1742–1745
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 182.9 × 188 cm (72 × 74 in.)
Credit Line: Bequest of James Deering
Reference Number: 1925.702

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Art Institute of Chicago, Century of Progress, June 1 – November 1, 1933, no. 159.
Art Institute of Chicago, Century of Progress, June 1 – November 1, 1934, no. 337.
Art Institute of Chicago, Loan Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings, and Prints by the two Tiepolos, February 4 – March 6, 1938, no. 9.
Udine, Villa Manin di Passariano, Mostra del Tiepolo, June 27 – October 31, 1971, no. 61.
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Giambattista Tiepolo, January 24 – April 27, 1997, no. 17d.

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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