Erminia and the Shepherd (from a set of Scenes from Gerusalemme Liberata)

Domenico Paradisi

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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.

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.

Metropolitan Museum of Art