Erminia and the Shepherd (from a set of Scenes from Gerusalemme Liberata)
San Michele|Domenico Paradisi|Pietro Ferloni
designed ca. 1689–93, woven 1732–39 · Wool, silk (16-18 warps per inch, 7 per cm.) · European Sculpture and Decorative Arts
Commissioned by Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni, a great-nephew of Pope Alexander VIII, this was part of a massive series, heroic in scale as well as narrative, of fifteen tapestries depicting the romanticized version of the Christians’ First Crusade into Jerusalem recounted in Tasso’s sixteenth-century epic poem, Gerusalemme Liberata (Jerusalem Delivered). In a gentle illusionistic interplay of spatial projection and recession, double-headed eagles (alluding to the Ottoboni arms), settle on the imposing sculptural surround to a landscape scene in which the Turkish princess, Erminia, fleeing from Christian soldiers, seeks shelter with a shepherd and his family.
- Artist
- San Michele|Domenico Paradisi|Pietro Ferloni
- Date
- designed ca. 1689–93, woven 1732–39
- Medium
- Wool, silk (16-18 warps per inch, 7 per cm.)
- Culture
- Italian, Rome
- Department
- European Sculpture and Decorative Arts
- Credit line
- Bequest of Elizabeth U. Coles, in memory of her son, William F. Coles, 1892
