Sketch for a Battle Scene: Tancred and Clorinda

This 1593 sketch for a battle scene of Tancred and Clorinda, now in the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, is a compositional study for what was likely a never-completed or lost large-scale treatment of Tasso's famous episode — the accidental killing of the beloved in combat. The sketch's small scale (71.1 × 41.9 cm) and oil-on-canvas medium place it in the category of preparatory works that Tintoretto produced to work out compositional ideas before committing to large canvases, a practice more common in his late career when the physical demands of monumental painting required more systematic preparation. The RISD Museum in Providence, part of the Rhode Island School of Design and holding a distinguished collection of art across all media and periods, preserves this sketch as an important documentary work — evidence of Tintoretto's creative process at the very end of his career, when he was simultaneously working on the San Giorgio Maggiore cycle and this Tasso subject. The sketch reflects the enduring appeal of Gerusalemme Liberata as a source of subjects: published in 1581, Tasso's poem had been generating painted responses for over a decade when Tintoretto made this study.

The sketch reveals Tintoretto's dynamic compositional method, with energetically posed figures and rapid brushwork that capture the violence and emotion of the literary encounter.