Rinaldo and Armida

In 1629 Charles I of England was assembling the finest art collection any English king had ever owned, and he wanted the young Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck at his court. This canvas was the lure. It was ordered for the king through one of his agents, and its subject came from a poem Charles loved, Torquato Tasso's epic of the First Crusade. The sorceress Armida has been sent to destroy the Christian knight Rinaldo. She finds him asleep by a river, lifts her hand to kill him, and instead falls in love. Van Dyck paints the exact hinge of the story, her intent already melting as she leans over him. Within three years the painter had crossed the Channel, been knighted, and become the king's court portraitist, the role that would fix the look of the English aristocracy for a generation. The picture stayed in royal hands until Charles was executed and his collection was sold off.