(Venice 1675–1741)
Erminia and the shepherds,
oil on canvas, 138.5 x 112 cm, framed

Provenance:
sale, San Marco, Venice, 21 October 2007, lot 26;
Private European collection

Literature:
U. Ruggeri, Da Paolo Pagani ad Antonio Pellegrini, in: F. Pedrocco (ed.), L’impegno e la conoscenza. Studi di Storia dell’arte in onore di Egidio Martini, Verona 2009, pp. 241-242, p. 238, fig. 1 (as Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini)

The present painting represents an episode from the Gerusalemme Liberata of Torquato Tasso and specifically, the moment when Erminia, the daughter of a Saracen king, attempts to find Tancredi whom she believes wounded in battle. At the edge of the forest she encounters an elderly shepherd weaving a reed basket while listening to two children sing. The old man extols the joys of his retiring and peaceful life whilst nearby, the battle rages.

This subject enjoyed considerable popularity among patrons of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, owing to its celebration of the pleasures of country life, according to the Arcadian fashion of the era. This theme from Tasso was especially attractive to an artist such as Antonio Pellegrini whose paintings are spontaneous and light.

The present painting is executed in the typical, pastel-like, light and luminous pallet of Pellegrini. The youthful Erminia is shown with long blond hair, elegantly dressed and with polished armour glowing in the warmth of bright sun light, she strikes a bold contrast with the shadowed figure of the old man in the foreground. Here Pellegrini demonstrates his great skill, as he elaborates on the Arcadian theme with an easy pictorial freedom which is entirely modern, while rooted in the Venetian colourist tradition, exemplified by Paolo Veronese and renewed and disseminated throughout Europe by Luca Giordano.

This work belongs to the artist’s mature period and according to
Ruggeri (see literature) is comparable to the artist’s canvases of Juno, Ceres, Pluto and Cerberus of 1716 (Brouwershuis, Antwerp) and the
Martyrdom of Saint Andrew in the church of San Stae, Venice, executed in 1722. Pellegrini was an itinerant artist and among the most celebrated painters of his age throughout Europe. He was active in England,
Holland, France and at several of the courts of Germany.