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Rinaldo and the Mirror-Shield (Verso)
Francesco Maffei
The J. Paul Getty Museum
Los Angeles, United States
In Torquato Tasso's 1581 epic poem Gerusalemme liberata (Jerusalem Delivered), the legendary medieval knight Rinaldo is bewitched by the beautiful sorceress Armida and lulled into a life of easy sensuality on the Fortunate Isles. His friends, the knights Carlo and Ubaldo, enter her garden and break her spell by showing Rinaldo a magic mirror-shield. His military spirit reawakened, Rinaldo later rejoins his companions in the enchanted forest.
Some seventy years after the famous book was written, the Baroque artist Francesco Maffei applied his expressive brushwork and rich color to enhance the drama of Tasso's Renaissance epic.
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Details
- Title: Rinaldo and the Mirror-Shield (Verso)
- Creator: Francesco Maffei
- Date Created: about 1650–1655
- Physical Dimensions: 29.8 × 34 cm (11 3/4 × 13 3/8 in.)
- Type: Painting
- External Link: Find out more about this object on the Museum website.
- Medium: Oil on copper
- Terms of Use: Open Content
- Number: 85.PC.321.1
- Culture: Italian
- Credit Line: The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles
- Creator Display Name: Francesco Maffei (Italian (Venetian), about 1605 - 1660)
- Classification: Paintings (Visual Works)
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