(Piano del Cilento 1662–1728 Naples)
Rinaldo and Armida,
oil on panel, 140.4 x 192.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
with Pardo Gallery, Paris;
Private collection, Milan

Literature:
A. Della Ragione, Paolo de Matteis. Opera Completa, Naples 2015, pp. 22, 42, 64, fig. 64;
L. Pestilli, Paolo de Matteis, Neapolitan Painting and Cultural History in Baroque europe, Farnham 2013, p. 349 (mistakenly as oil on canvas)

The chivalric achievements of Rinaldo, lord of Montalbano, are rooted in the ancient French chanson de geste, but it is in the Gerusalemme Liberata that Tasso narrates the story of the hero’s infatuation with the beautiful Saracen magician, Armida. The events unfold on the shores of the river Orontes, the Arabic Nahr el ‘Asì, which runs from Lebanon through Syria and Turkey to enter the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. The bold Christian paladin is lured in by the enchantments of Armida: ‘qual cauta cacciatrice … aspetta Rinaldo al varco’ [‘that careful huntress … who awaits Rinaldo at the gate’] (see: T. Tasso, Gerusalemme Liberata, XIII, p. 57). However, before losing the last of his vigour in the arms of his beloved, and thereby eliminating his strength in the crusades, the young hero is saved by his faithful companions, Carlo and Ubaldo. Here they are seen hidden, spying on the romantic idyll from among the bushes, ready to advance.

The present painting large is related to a compostion of the same subject and on the same support, but in a smaller format, which appeared at auction in Sotheby’s; New York 7th June 2002, lot 136: oil on panel, 51.1 x 59.1 cm (see: A. Della Ragione, Paolo de Matteis. Opera Completa, Naples 2015, p. 113, pl. 157). Compared to the easel painting, the present large format work preserves the arrangement of the figures in the foreground but the landscape background is changed. In the smaller work, the palace of Armida is seen in the distance, its form recalling the Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome. In the present work however, De Matteis situates the amorous couple on the edge of a wood, thereby creating space for the arrival of Rinaldo’s companions, who can be seen ready at arms to the left.

The present work has been dated to the early 18th century, during the brief years when the Neapolitan painter attended to numerous commissions away from home. Notable among these are his participation in the cycle of canvases decorating the Galleria dell’Eneide of Palazzo Buonaccorsi in Macerata, to which he contributed a Venus presenting arms to Eneas documented to 1712, which is today conserved in the Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Urbino; this shares a similar range of colours with as the present painting (see: G. Barucca/A. Sfrappini, Tutta per ordine dipinta’ La Galleria dell’Eneide di Palazzo Buonaccorsi a Macerata, in: Quaderni della Soprintendenza di Urbino 6, Urbino 2001, pp. 79-81, no. 11).