Armida Binding the Sleeping Rinaldo with Flowers

In 1581, the Italian writer Torquato Tasso published a novel that became an international bestseller: La Gerusalemme Liberata (The liberated Jerusalem). The book was to inspire artists for centuries to come. Here, you can see how the beautiful sorceress Armida wants to kill Rinaldo in his sleep. But when she sees how handsome he is and smells his enchanting fragrance, she falls in love immediately. And so love wins.

Willem van Mieris was a son of the Leiden ‘fijnschilder’, or fine painter, Frans van Mieris I. His paintings are so smoothly executed that they look almost polished.