Rinaldo under Armida’s Spell

Tiepolo arrived in Würzburg in December 1750 with his sons Domenico and Lorenzo, under contract to the prince-bishop, and stayed almost three years. By 1753 he was finishing the fresco over the Residenz staircase, several hundred square metres of it, spread across a vault Balthasar Neumann had built with no columns under it. This canvas comes from the same year at the opposite scale, something for a room. The story is from Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, printed in 1581. The sorceress Armida is sent to destroy the crusader Rinaldo and falls in love with him instead, then keeps him in her garden under a spell. She holds the mirror that works her magic, with Cupid beside her, and Rinaldo sits garlanded and content. Tiepolo left for Venice at the end of 1753 and never worked in Germany again.