Silvio with the Wounded Dorinda

165(1)?

Louis Vallée

Painter, Dutch, died 1653

Set in a mountainous landscape, a curvy, robust woman wounded with a short slash across her chest reclines into the arms of an older, bearded man as second, cleanshaven man, at the lower left corner, holds an arrow tip to his own chest in this horizontal painting. The people have pale, peachy skin but the older man has a more tan complexion. The reclining woman at the center of the composition, Dorinda, lies back with her left cheek pressed against that shoulder. Her left elbow, on our right, is propped up at shoulder height, perhaps on a rock, and she holds up her other arm alongside her body, her palm facing out at the younger man in the lower left, Silvio. A string of pearls sits like a crown on Dorinda’s blond, curling hair. The skin of her face is pale but her eyelids and cheeks are deeply flushed. She looks down along her body toward Silvio with dark eyes, and her slack lips are parted. Her flowing white blouse falls off her shoulders and bunches up across her chest, almost covering the bleeding wound on the center of her chest. Her wine-red skirt glints in the light, suggesting it is silk, and is bunched up around her bare feet. Silvio has flowing dark brown hair and pointed features. He is shown from the waist up, leaning toward and looking up at the wounded woman. His hair falls loosely over his shoulders, and his pink lips are parted. He holds a brown wrap over a blousy white shirt with his right hand, closer to us, and holds up the point of an arrow to his chest with the other hand. The older man, to our right, has a wiry gray beard and ash-gray hair curling around his ears. Wrinkles line his forehead, the corners of his eyes, and the sides of his mouth. His dark brown robe nearly swallows his body. He looks down toward Silvio as he supports Dorinda. A gold and black quiver of arrows and a silver, crescent-shaped horn with red tassels sit near the lower right corner, near Dorinda’s elbow. A tree grows right behind the man. The rest of the mountainous landscape is hazy in the deep distance.

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Louis Vallée took his subject from Giovanni Battista Guarini's late sixteenth-century tragicomedy Il Pastor Fido, a pastoral play that glorified arcadian life and had far-ranging effects on the art and literature of France, Flanders, and the Netherlands. Its extremely intricate plot focuses on the love between the faithful shepherd Mirtillo and the nymph Amarillis, who is betrothed to Silvio by paternal arrangement. This scene is from the play’s subplot, which concentrates on the love of the nymph Dorinda for Silvio, who cares only for the hunt and is oblivious to her feelings. After one of Silvio’s arrows accidentally wounds Dorinda, she crawls out from the bushes where she had been hiding in her animal-skin disguise and falls into the arms of her guardian, Linco. Silvio, distraught and finally realizing his own love for Dorinda, offers her the arrow so that she can exact revenge by taking his life in return. Dorinda, whose wound is only superficial, wisely rejects his emotional offer so that all ends well. The two lovers are married before sunset that very day.

Silvio with the Wounded Dorinda is an excellent example of Dutch classicism as it developed in Amsterdam around mid-century. History paintings such as this work were greatly admired and avidly collected by Amsterdam patricians. Almost nothing is known about the life of the artist Louis Vallée. Unfortunately, the first and only document that refers specifically to him is the register that records his burial in Amsterdam’s Oude Kerk on May 28, 1653.


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Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Alex Wengraf, London), by 1983;[1] purchased 1990 by by Patricia Bauman and the Honorable John Landrum Bryant, Washington, D.C.; gift 2000 to NGA.
[1] The painting was with Wengraf when it was published in Werner Sumowski, Gemälde der Rembrand-Schüler, 6 vols., Landau,1983: 6:3731, no. 2373, image 3983, as by Jacob van Loo.

Associated Names

Bibliography

1983

  • Sumowski, Werner. Gemälde der Rembrandt-Schüler in vier Bänden. 6 vols. Landau, 1983: 6:3731, no. 2373, repro., as Silvio und die verwundete Dorinda by Jacob van Loo.

2008

  • Brink, Peter van den. "Uitmuntend schilder in het groot: De schilder en tekenaar Jacob Adriaensz Backer (1608/9-1651)." In Jacob Backer (1608/9-1651). Edited by Peter van den Brink and Jaap van der Veen. Exh. cat. Museum Het Rembrandthuis, Amsterdam; Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, Aachen. Zwolle, 2008: 54-55, repro.

2010

  • Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. "Wouter Kloek and the Attribution of Louis Vallée’s 'Silvio with the Wounded Dorinda'." The Rijksmuseum Bulletin 58, no. 2 (2010): 173-177, repro.

Inscriptions

lower right to left of arrow sheaf: Loiy[s] Vallee. / f [1]65[1?]

Wikidata ID

Q20177369


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