Rinaldo and the Magus of Ascalon

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo · c. 1742–45

Medium

Oil on canvas

Original size

182.9 × 188 cm (72 × 74 in.); Framed: 194 × 190.2 × 7.6 cm (76 3/8 × 74 7/8 × 3 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Rococo

Tiepolo's "Rinaldo and the Magus of Ascalon" sweeps the viewer into the enchanted world of Torquato Tasso's epic poem "Jerusalem Delivered," rendered with the luminous theatricality that defined Venetian Rococo painting at its height. Giovanni Battista Tiepolo was the foremost decorative painter of eighteenth-century Europe, celebrated for his ability to fill vast spaces — and intimate canvases alike — with figures that seem to float in crystalline light. His palette ran cool and silvery where other painters of the era reached for warmth, and his brushwork had an improvisational confidence that made even mythological drama feel alive. The Rinaldo scenes, of which Tiepolo produced several works across his career, gave him a subject perfectly suited to this gift: chivalric heroes, sorcerers, and moral conflict staged with operatic flair. The Rinaldo series drew on one of the most widely read Italian poems of the period, and Tasso's influence on European painting from the seventeenth through eighteenth centuries was substantial and well-documented. This hand-painted oil reproduction faithfully follows Tiepolo's original composition and palette, allowing the soft drama of his lighting and the characteristic elegance of his figures to translate into a work that carries the same quiet energy as the canvas held in Chicago.