Rinaldo and Armida in Her Garden

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo · c. 1742–45

Medium

Oil on canvas

Original size

186.7 × 259.4 cm (73 1/2 × 102 1/8 in.); Framed: 194.3 × 270.5 × 7.9 cm (76 1/2 × 106 1/2 × 3 1/8 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Rococo

Rinaldo and Armida in Her Garden is one of Tiepolo's most ravishing treatments of the enchanted episode from Torquato Tasso's epic poem *Jerusalem Delivered*, where the sorceress Armida holds the crusader Rinaldo captive in a garden of supernatural beauty. Tiepolo was the supreme decorative painter of eighteenth-century Venice, and this canvas shows why: his palette is luminous yet never garish, the figures weightless and graceful, and the whole scene suffused with a theatrical warmth that feels closer to a dream than a stage set. He returned to the Rinaldo and Armida subject multiple times across his career, each version refining the balance between sensuality and melancholy that gives the myth its lasting pull. The Art Institute of Chicago dates this canvas to around 1742–45, placing it among the most accomplished works of Tiepolo's mature period, when his handling of aerial light and silken drapery was at its most assured. Our hand-painted oil reproduction is made on linen canvas using traditional pigments, working directly from high-resolution archival reference to preserve the warmth of Tiepolo's glazing, the delicacy of his highlights, and the atmospheric depth that makes the original so quietly breathtaking.