This is one of a set of five embroidered wall hangings depicting scenes from Torquato Tasso's epic poem <i>Gerusalemme Liberata</i> or Jerusalem Delivered. The poem, published in Parma in 1581, is based on an earlier orally-transmitted retelling of the story of the capture of Jerusalem during the First Crusade of 1099.
The history of the set is a mystery. It was purchased in Naples in 1868, but the documentation provided by Mr May, the Museum's Art Referee, to justify the acquisition is scant. Clearly the hangings have been cut down as portions of the scenes they depict are missing, but we have no information about the original size of the embroideries or the extent of the set. Nor do we know by or for whom they were made.
Some of the embroideries have complex borders incorporating caryatid figures and festoons of flowers with a central cartouche quoting the relevant passage from Tasso. These borders are very similar in design to those of a set of tapestries also depicting scenes from <i>Gerusalemme Liberata</i> made for the Cardinal-Nephew, Pietro Ottoboni (1667-1740), by the San Michele manufactory in Rome. Four of these tapestries are now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The tapestries were based upon painted wall hangings commissioned by Ottoboni for his apartments in the Papal Palace in 1691. An inventory of about 1740 indicates that there were seventeen tapestries in the series. As the tapestries were made in the 1730s, and these hangings predate them it is tempting to speculate that these embroideries are also based upon the painted hangings designed for Ottoboni. Even if this is not the case it is likely that the tapestries, embroideries and paintings derive from a single printed source. Further research is necessary to illuminate these extraordinary works of art.