Erminia and the Shepherd (from a set of Scenes from Gerusalemme Liberata)
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.
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.
Artwork Details
- Title: Erminia and the Shepherd (from a set of Scenes from Gerusalemme Liberata)
- Designer: Designed by Domenico Paradisi (Italian, active 1689–1721)
- Manufactory: Woven at the San Michele workshop
- Workshop director: Pietro Ferloni (Italian, active 1717–70)
- Date: designed ca. 1689–93, woven 1732–39
- Culture: Italian, Rome
- Medium: Wool, silk (16-18 warps per inch, 7 per cm.)
- Dimensions: 11 ft. 11 in. × 15 ft. (363.2 × 457.2 cm)
- Classification: Textiles-Tapestries
- Credit Line: Bequest of Elizabeth U. Coles, in memory of her son, William F. Coles, 1892
- Object Number: 92.1.17
- Curatorial Department: European Sculpture and Decorative Arts
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Multiple artists/makers
designed ca. 1689–93, woven 1732–39
Multiple artists/makers
designed ca. 1689–93, woven 1739
Multiple artists/makers
designed ca. 1689–93, woven 1732–39
Niccolo Michetti
ca. 1715
French, possibly Paris or Lorraine
ca. 1691–94
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