Lot Essay
Professor Marcel Roethlisberger was the first to publish the present picture as the work of Claude Lorrain in 1982, loc. cit., when he dated it to a period early in Claude's career between 1630 and 1635. In the 1983 Munich exhibition catalogue he noted the strong influence of Flemish landscape painters such as Paul Bril on Claude's work of this period. This Claude combined, as in the present picture, with an increasing sensitivity to the portrayal of atmospheric light effects which in turn influenced the paintings of Claude's contemporaries in Rome, Jan Both and Herman van Swanevelt. Indeed the present picture was sold in these Rooms in 1979 as the work of Swanevelt.
Roethlisberger pointed out that the compositional motifs of a large central group of trees and a view of a distant landscape and detailed foreground plants on the left with a repoussoir of trees on the right reapper in similar landscapes by Claude which are datable to the same period (see M. Roethlisberger, Claude Lorrain. The Paintings, London, 1961, I, pp. 511-12, no. 243; II, fig. 24: and M. Roethlisberger, Claude Lorrain. The Drawings, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1968, I, pp. 98-9, no. 69: II, fig. 69).
A slightly smaller, darker version of the present picture is in the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam. It is also dated by Roethlisberger to the first half of the 1630s and to between 1635 and 1637 by Eckhart Knab (Ein Gemälde von Claude Lorrain im Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Bulletin Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, 20, 1969, pp. 94-118). There are only a few minor differences between this work and the present picture: in the Munich exhibition catalogue Roethlisberger, loc. cit., stated that it was impossible to discern which of the two paintings might be the prime version, and noted that it was not uncommon for the artist himself to repeat certain successful compositions. Despite Jansen's doubts regarding the status of the present work as expressed in the catalogue of the 1992 exhibition, loc. cit., Roethlisberger remains firmly convinced that the present work 'is a very fine original by the hand of Claude, in no way inferior to the one in Rotterdam' (written communication).
Roethlisberger pointed out that the compositional motifs of a large central group of trees and a view of a distant landscape and detailed foreground plants on the left with a repoussoir of trees on the right reapper in similar landscapes by Claude which are datable to the same period (see M. Roethlisberger, Claude Lorrain. The Paintings, London, 1961, I, pp. 511-12, no. 243; II, fig. 24: and M. Roethlisberger, Claude Lorrain. The Drawings, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1968, I, pp. 98-9, no. 69: II, fig. 69).
A slightly smaller, darker version of the present picture is in the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam. It is also dated by Roethlisberger to the first half of the 1630s and to between 1635 and 1637 by Eckhart Knab (Ein Gemälde von Claude Lorrain im Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Bulletin Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, 20, 1969, pp. 94-118). There are only a few minor differences between this work and the present picture: in the Munich exhibition catalogue Roethlisberger, loc. cit., stated that it was impossible to discern which of the two paintings might be the prime version, and noted that it was not uncommon for the artist himself to repeat certain successful compositions. Despite Jansen's doubts regarding the status of the present work as expressed in the catalogue of the 1992 exhibition, loc. cit., Roethlisberger remains firmly convinced that the present work 'is a very fine original by the hand of Claude, in no way inferior to the one in Rotterdam' (written communication).