Rinaldo and Armida as lovers observed by Ubaldo and Carlo

In 1632 an inventory of the palace of Frederick Henry of Orange, the Dutch stadholder, in The Hague listed a van Dyck of Mars and Venus, suitable for a chimneypiece. The Louvre identifies it with this canvas, and the clerk had the story wrong. The scene comes from Torquato Tasso's crusader poem, Jerusalem Delivered. The sorceress Armida holds the knight Rinaldo in her lap in an enchanted garden, while her cupids carry off his weapons. That crowd of cupids was van Dyck's own addition. The clerk did notice one of them, wearing Armida's red slipper. Half hidden at the edge are Ubaldo and Carlo, sent to bring Rinaldo back to the war. An engraving of 1644 shows a taller composition, so the top was later cut away. The picture reached Paris in 1795, after French armies overran the Dutch Republic, and was long listed there as an imitation of van Dyck.