Clorinda rescues Olindo and Sophronia

Clorinda Rescues Olindo and Sophronia, dated 1646 and in the Musei di Strada Nuova Genoa, is an earlier version of the Tasso episode than the 1660 Getty painting, allowing comparison of Preti's approach to the same subject at different career stages. The 1646 date places it in his pre-Neapolitan period, when he had left Rome and was working in various Italian cities before settling in Naples around 1653. The Genoese collections of Italian Baroque painting reflect the city-state's wealth and its patricians' active patronage of major painters throughout the seventeenth century. The slight compositional and tonal differences between this version and the Getty painting reveal how Preti refined his approach to a subject across the interval of fourteen years — the earlier version likely tighter and more deliberate, the later freer and more confident in its spatial construction.

The 1646 date suggests a handling more deliberate and carefully constructed than the 1660 Getty version, as Preti's manner grew progressively looser and more assured with advancing career. The rescue composition's fundamental challenge — Clorinda's authority against the condemned pair's constraint — is resolved through the same basic strategies, but the earlier version likely employs more conventional compositional devices and less of the spatial freedom the mature Preti achieves.