작품 상세

Lady Diana Beauclerk English, 1734-1808 Erminia Among the Shepherds Signed with the initial D (lr); inscribed Tancred on the tree trunk at center Black ink, gray wash and watercolor on paper 20 x 24 inches (50.8 x 61 cm) This scene is from La Gerusalemme Liberata (Jerusalem Delivered), a 16th-century eipc poem by Torquato Tasso. Here the Saracen princess Erminia, after wandering in a forest in search of her beloved, the Christian knight Tancred, has been befriended by a family of shepherds, headed by "an old man [sitting] in the pleasant shadow Weaving baskets with his flocks about And listens to the song of three small boys. (Canto 7, Stanza 6) Later in the poem, Eriminia writes Tancred's name on a number of trees, and then "as she re-read these inscriptions beautiful tears streaked her cheeks." (Stanza 19) C