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| The Companions of Rinaldo |
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| Antonio Tempesta, Illustration for Canto XV from Tasso's" Gerusalemme liberata III," plate 15, etching (The Met, 51.501.4052) |
Artist:Nicolas Poussin (French, Les Andelys 1594–1665 Rome)
Date:ca. 1633
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:46 1/2 x 40 1/4 in. (118.1 x 102.2 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, 1977
This canvas probably belonged to the antiquary and collector Cassiano dal Pozzo. It illustrates an episode from Torquato Tasso’s (1544–1595) heroic crusader poem Jerusalem Delivered (1580), in which the Christian knights Carlo and Ubaldo confront a dragon in their attempt to rescue Rinaldo from a pagan sorceress. As the first crusade took place in the eleventh century, their antique Roman arms and armor are anachronistic, and reveal more about the painter's antiquarian interests than provide an accurate setting for the tale.
Catalogue Entry
This picture illustrates an episode from Torquato Tasso's heroic poem Gerusalemme Liberata (Jerusalem Delivered). First published in 1580, the poem combines an account of the First Crusade with imaginary adventures and love stories. One of the heroes, Rinaldo, is abducted by the pagan sorceress Armida, who falls in love with him and carries him off to her palace on the island of Fortune. There she casts a spell on him causing him to fall in love with her. Two Christian knights, Carlo and Ubaldo, come to exhort Rinaldo to leave his beloved and rejoin his fellow crusaders, but their way to Armida's palace is blocked by a dragon. It is this scene, recorded in canto 15 of Tasso's poem that is represented here.
One of four paintings by Poussin that illustrate the story of Rinaldo and Armida, this is the latest in the story's sequence and is usually dated in the early 1630s. A work from the same period, now in the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, shows Armida about to slay the sleeping Rinaldo, but suddenly arrested by his beauty. In a painting in the Pushkin Museum, Moscow, slightly later than the Dulwich picture, Armida has dropped her dagger and is about to lift Rinaldo up and carry him off with her to her island. A third picture, in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, represents the actual carrying off of Rinaldo by Armida and was painted by Poussin in 1637 for his friend and fellow artist, Jacques Stella. These works cannot have formed a unified cycle as they differ in style and dimensions. A drawing by Poussin (Louvre, Paris) showing Carlo and Ubaldo leading Rinaldo off the island, a subject that could conceivably have formed a pendant, is too late to be associated with The Companions of Rinaldo.
Although Tasso's poem enjoyed a great vogue among seventeenth-century painters, this appears to be a unique example of the Christian knights coming to Rinaldo's rescue. Carlo unsheathes his sword and holds it ready at his side while Ubaldo raises a magic golden wand; the mysterious woman seated in the boat is the goddess Fortuna, who leads the knights to the island. The artist has borrowed the motifs of the coiled dragon, Classical costumes, and even the cavernous setting by the sea from one of three sets of etchings by Antonio Tempesta (1555–1630) made between 1607 and 1630 (The Met, 51.501.4052; see fig. 1 above). For the design of the antique boat, Poussin turned to a fragmentary sarcophagus (Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Venice; see Fahy 2005), or one like it.
The Companions of Rinaldo was most likely painted shortly before Poussin's Adoration of the Magi (Gemäldegalerie, Dresden), signed and dated 1633, a work generally recognized as launching his mature style. The vertical format of this canvas, which does not appear in his oeuvre after the early 1630s, would also support such a date. The picture may have belonged to Poussin's close friend and patron, Cassiano dal Pozzo (d. 1657), as it is listed in the posthumous inventory of his brother, Carlo Antonio dal Pozzo (d. 1689).
[2010; adapted from Fahy 2005]
Provenance
Cassiano dal Pozzo, Rome (until d. 1657); his brother, Carlo Antonio dal Pozzo, Rome (until d. 1689); his son, Gabriele dal Pozzo, Rome (1689–d. by January 1695; posthumous inv., 1695, no. 85, "Altro . . . con Carlo e Ubaldo che vanno da Rinaldo del Pusino"); his son, Cosimo Antonio dal Pozzo, Rome (until 1723; sold to Bufalo); marchese Ottavio Rinaldo dal Bufalo, Rome (1723–at least 1731); ?Graf Aloys Thomas Raimond von Harrach, Vienna (probably purchased in late 1731 or 1732 [Harrach was Viceroy of the Kingdom of Naples, 1728–32]); Grafen von Harrach, Vienna (by 1738; invs., 1745 and 1749, no. 74; cat., 1856, no. 200 as by Le Sueur; cat., 1897, no. 199 as by Le Sueur; cat., 1926, no. 199 as by Poussin); Countess Stephanie Harrach, Vienna (until 1967; sold to Wildenstein); [Wildenstein, New York, 1967–68; sold to Wrightsman]; Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, New York (1968–77; cat., 1973, no. 18)
Copyright Image
https://images.metmuseum.org
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