Exquisite Italian Silkwork Picture

Description

Very fine Italian 18th century silkwork picture depicting Torquato Tasso, the great Italian Renaissance poet, finely wrought with hundreds of grey and white seed pearls, silk and gold thread, the poet being crowned with a laurel wreath. The whole in very good condition, with only minor discoloration to the silk ground, Tasso was one of the most celebrated poets in his day, enjoying the patronage of several Italian nobel families. Toward the end of Tasso’s life, Pope Clement VIII invited him to Rome where he was to receive the crown of laurels, as Petrarch had been crowned, on the Capitol. Sadly, before the coronation occurred, Tasso – who was very ill, visited a convent in Sant’Onofrio where he died in April 1595.