With a price tag of 5 million dollars, Eugène Delacroix’s Angelica comforting the wounded Medoro is about to become the most valuable painting ever to be hung on the walls of the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. The Art Gallery of New South Wales has lent the work to the Tasmanian gallery for the duration of its Hobart Baroque 2014 festival.

“The subject of Angelica comforting the wounded Medoro is taken from the great 16th century epic poem Orlando Furioso by the Renaissance poet, Ludovico Ariosto,” says Hobart Baroque Artistic Director, Leo Schofield AM. “It is the very same work that also inspired Handel to write his opera Orlando, so it has a very special reference to the centerpiece of this year’s Hobart Baroque.”

The Governor of Tasmania, The Honourable Peter Underwood AC and the Governor of New South Wales, Her Excellency Professor The Honourable Marie Bashir AC CVO will unveil the work, which will be on display from Friday March 28 to Saturday April 5 2014.

View the entire Hobart Baroque 2014 line-up.