Angelica Resting Under a Tree, from Orlando Furioso
1810/13
Medium
Pen and brown ink, and brush and brown and gray wash, over graphite, on ivory wove paper
Dimensions
34.7 × 51.5 cm (13 11/16 × 20 5/16 in.)
Classification
pen and ink drawings
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
113989
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
What at first glance appears to be a landscape is in fact a scene from the enduringly popular chivalric romance, Orlando Furioso (Orlando in Frenzy), first published in 1516 by the Italian poet Ludovico Ariosto. One of the poem’s central characters, the beautiful princess Angelica, is being pursued by several enamored knights (one of whom is just visible in the middle distance), and has stopped to rest in a leafy grove beside a brook. Easy to miss, Angelica lies naked in the left foreground spo...
About the Artist
Felice Giani · 1758–1823
Died 21 January 1823. Giani was a student of C.A. Bianchi and Antonio Galli Bibiena in Pavia; from 1778 he was a student of Dom. Pedrini and Ub. Gandolfi in Bologna; from 1780 he was a student of P. Batoni, Chr. Unterberger and G. Antolini at the Academy of S. Luca in Rome.