Claude Lorrain

Claude Gellée, called Claude Lorrain, was born around 1604/05 in the village of Chamagne, in the Duchy of Lorraine. According to Joachim von Sandrart (1606–1688), one his biographers, his parents put him to work for a pastry chef. Like many of his countrymen, Claude moved to Rome to pursue the culinary arts, but having little professional experience was unable to obtain a position to support himself and therefore accepted employment as assistant in the household of the landscape painter Agostino Tassi (ca. 1580–1644). After moving to Naples for a couple years and then back to Lorraine, he eventually returned to Rome around 1627.

Soon after, Claude emerged in Rome as an independent artist and began receiving praise for his distinctive landscape paintings. He perfected a form of landscape painting that would remain influential into the 19th century. In his works, Claude combined the study and observation of nature with ideas and motifs taken for classical texts, such as Virgil poems, creating idyllic views of a lost age.

Claude’s reputation grew steadily and his meticulously rendered Arcadian scenes encountered the favour of many collectors. By 1650, the painter was famous throughout Europe as the greatest and most lyrical living painter of landscapes, the unrivalled master of the heroic and poetic effects of glowing light. Claude became, with Nicolas Poussin, the most celebrated and sought-after artist in Rome, counting the French ambassador, members of the Medici court, more than one pope and Philip IV, King of Spain among his patrons.

Claude was also a very prolific and accomplished draftsmen. Thousands of his drawings survive, ranging from fluent sketches made outdoors in the campagna outside Rome to more elaborate and finished studies.