Claude Gelle, called Claude Lorrain* (1600-1682)

Venus and Adonis in an extensive Landscape with Deer

Details

Claude Gelle, called Claude Lorrain* (1600-1682)
Venus and Adonis in an extensive Landscape with Deer
inscribed 'venus e adonis'
pen and brown ink, brown and gray wash
4 x 7 in. (121 x 179 mm.)

Provenance

With P. & D. Colnaghi, London, 1937.
Sir Bruce Ingram (L. 1405a).

Literature

M. Roethlisberger, 'Les dessins de Claude Lorrain sujets rares', Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1962, p. 160.
M. Roethlisberger, Claude Lorrain, The Drawings, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1968, no. 781, illustrated.

Lot Essay

Professor Marcel Roethlisberger dates the drawing to the artist's mature period, circa 1650-5, and points that it is the only representation of this common subject in Claude's oeuvre. The subject, taken from Ovid and exactly followed by Claude, recounts how Venus and Adonis were hunting deer in a mountainous landscape and afterward rested in the shadow of a tree.