Highlights of the Annual Report - The Ashmolean Museum

Acquisitions, gifts and loans / 31
The spellbound Rinaldo is placed in
Armida’s Chariot
Andrea Boscoli (c.1560-1608)
Pen and brown ink over traces of red chalk, brush with
brown wash, 15.0 x 22.3 cm.
Presented by Mrs Larissa Haskell in memory of
Professor Francis Haskell (WA 2003.98)
Boscoli was trained in Florence in the studio of
Santi di Tito, but soon developed his own
distinctive style with strong light and shade, of
which this is an excellent example. The scene shows
a scene from Tasso’s Gerusalemme Liberata, the
abduction of the Christian knight Rinaldo by the
wicked sorceress Armida, who had fallen in love
with him. The drawing is one of a series on the tale of Rinaldo and Armida;
the two subsequent scenes in the narrative are already in the Ashmolean,
making this gift a fitting addition.
Candle snuffers and tray
Silver; the tray 22.9 cm. long, the snuffers 18.4 cm. The tray hallmarked London,
1682, with the maker’s mark D or ID; the snuffers marked WB.
Presented by Mrs Diane Bacon and Mrs Helen Smyth in memory of their
grandfather A.H. Whiteley (WA 2002.230)
The snuffers and tray are enchantingly flat-chased with chinoiserie
decoration. Together with the Mildmay monteith of 1684, which the
Museum acquired from the Whiteley Trust in 2000, they are part of a small
group of London silver of the 1680s and 1690s decorated - perhaps all in a
single workshop - with this sort of fantastical chinoiserie. The generous gift is
the latest chapter in the Whiteley family’s support of the Museum’s silver
collection.