Workshop of the Velins du Roi, early 18th century

Probably Horace Walpole (1717-1797), 4th Earl of Oxford, Paris and London (whose family crest, bearing a Sacaren's head beneath an Earl's coronet, is present on the frame);

Anonymous sale, New York, Christie's, 28 January 2000, lot 57;

Where acquired by Jordan and Thomas A. Saunders III.

Richmond, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Elegance and Wonder: Masterpieces of European Art from the Jordan and Thomas A. Saunders III Collection, 20 March 2023 - 30 January 2025.

Executed on three sheets of vellum, this diminutive yet refined work was probably executed by a member of the Atelier des Velins du Roi, a royal manufactory based at the Invalides in Paris. The artist drew technical inspiration from medieval miniaturists, while the aesthetic sensibility reflects the influence of Antoine Coypel. The subject derives from Torquato Tasso's 1581 epic Gerusalemme Liberata. Set during the First Crusade at the end of the eleventh century, the poem relates encounters between Christian knights and Saracen adversaries. Here, within the enchanted bower of the Saracen sorceress Armida, the crusader Rinaldo gazes into a mirror she holds before him. In the background at right, his companions Carlo and Ubaldo are seen peering into the magical garden.

The painting is presented in a Rococo trophy frame probably carved in eighteenth-century Ireland—possibly in the Dublin workshops of either John Houghton or Richard Cranfield. The intimate work was likely once owned by Horace Wapole, the eminent man of letters, who may have received it as a literary token of friendship during his time in Paris.

We are grateful to Lynn Roberts for her expertise on the frame.