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Lot Essay
Claude Lorrain achieved a great success in Rome in his own lifetime as a painter and draftsman of landscape and became particularly famous for his river, coast and seaport scenes.
This drawing is dated 1662 on the verso and belongs to the later part of the artist’s career when he began more consistently to date and sign his drawings. Claude made drawings using only pen and ink throughout his life, but only sporadically, while more often he combined the pen work with wash to create painterly effects of light and shade. The pen-work might reflect the artist’s interest in etching and this composition could have been a first idea for a print. In the 1660s Claude himself attempted the creation of etchings (Roethlisberger, op. cit, 1962, no. 23).
The present sheet shows the artist’s habit of framing his drawings with pen lines. It has been argued that the framing lines served to remind Claude of the edges of the paper and to enclose his vision, keeping his and the viewer’s gaze focused on the composition and preventing it from straying outside the boundaries (R. Rand, Claude Lorrain.The Painter as Draftsman. Drawings from the British Museum, exhib. cat., San Francisco, Legion of Honor, Williamstown, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2006, p. 40).
In this imaginary view of a coast, the artist included in the background a prominent antique-looking structure. Claude was not an antiquarian and he had little inclination towards historical accuracy. He blended together in his drawings and paintings features observed in the Roman landscape and creations of his own imagination. He was particularly fascinated by this kind of building, a rounded temple with columns probably inspired by the Temple of Sibyl at Tivoli. Similar structures recur often in his work, as in a drawing in the British Museum, part of the Liber Veritatis album (inv. 1957,1214.204; M. Kitson, Claude Lorrain Liber Veritatis, London, 1978, no. 198) and in the painting, Landscape with nymph and satyr dancing, now at the Museum of Art in Toledo (inv. 1949.170; see D. Bacigalupi, Toledo Museum of Art Masterworks, Toledo, 2009, p. 167, ill.). Claude’s imaginary antique structures celebrated an idealized world notable for its grandeur and beauty.
This drawing is dated 1662 on the verso and belongs to the later part of the artist’s career when he began more consistently to date and sign his drawings. Claude made drawings using only pen and ink throughout his life, but only sporadically, while more often he combined the pen work with wash to create painterly effects of light and shade. The pen-work might reflect the artist’s interest in etching and this composition could have been a first idea for a print. In the 1660s Claude himself attempted the creation of etchings (Roethlisberger, op. cit, 1962, no. 23).
The present sheet shows the artist’s habit of framing his drawings with pen lines. It has been argued that the framing lines served to remind Claude of the edges of the paper and to enclose his vision, keeping his and the viewer’s gaze focused on the composition and preventing it from straying outside the boundaries (R. Rand, Claude Lorrain.The Painter as Draftsman. Drawings from the British Museum, exhib. cat., San Francisco, Legion of Honor, Williamstown, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2006, p. 40).
In this imaginary view of a coast, the artist included in the background a prominent antique-looking structure. Claude was not an antiquarian and he had little inclination towards historical accuracy. He blended together in his drawings and paintings features observed in the Roman landscape and creations of his own imagination. He was particularly fascinated by this kind of building, a rounded temple with columns probably inspired by the Temple of Sibyl at Tivoli. Similar structures recur often in his work, as in a drawing in the British Museum, part of the Liber Veritatis album (inv. 1957,1214.204; M. Kitson, Claude Lorrain Liber Veritatis, London, 1978, no. 198) and in the painting, Landscape with nymph and satyr dancing, now at the Museum of Art in Toledo (inv. 1949.170; see D. Bacigalupi, Toledo Museum of Art Masterworks, Toledo, 2009, p. 167, ill.). Claude’s imaginary antique structures celebrated an idealized world notable for its grandeur and beauty.