Emilian School, 17th Century

Tancred baptising Clorinda,
oil on canvas, 45.5 x 56.5 cm, framed

Provenance:
sale, Millon & Associés, Paris, 16 December 1998, lot 22 (as after Sisto Badalocchio);
sale, Sotheby’s, London, 7 July 1999, lot 312 (as after Sisto Badalocchio);
Private collection, Switzerland

The present painting relates to a composition by Sisto Badalocchio in the Galleria Estense, Modena (inv. no. R.C.G.E. 256). Another version is conserved in the Northumberland Collection, Alnwick Castle, Alnwick (inv. no. 405). The high pictorial quality of this work can be especially compared to the Alnwick version, probably painted in 1609 after Badalocchio’s return from Rome, where he had worked with Annibale Carracci (1560–1609).

The episode of Tancredi baptising Clorinda appears in Canto XII of Torquato Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata (1581). During the siege of Jerusalem, Tancredi fights against a Saracen warrior, Clorinda, without recognising her. Only after mortally wounding her does he discover her identity; at that point, at the request of the dying woman, he baptises her, granting her Christian salvation. In the late sixteenth century, Tasso’s poem spread widely throughout Europe, arousing the interest of painters and printmakers. The episode of Clorinda’s baptism, so laden with religious and moral implications, became one of the most frequently represented. In the seventeenth century, the subject gained further popularity, also thanks to the Baroque taste for theatricality, which perfectly suited such a pathos-filled scene.