Pastoral Landscape

Claude Lorrain

1600-1682
Pastoral Landscape
1646-47
Oil on canvas
40-3/8 x 52-1/4 in.

Claude Lorrain -- born Claude Gellée and called Lorrain after his birthplace in France -- is known for a landscape style that combines classical ideals of beauty and harmony with a sensitive and acute observation of nature. He was particularly fascinated by light. The long shadows and the pink tone of the clouds in this painting indicate that the time of day is evening or early morning.

The work clearly reflects a contemporary description of the artist's methods: "He tried by every means to penetrate nature, lying in the fields before the break of day and until night in order to learn to represent very exactly the red morning-sky, sunrise and sunset and the evening hours."

Provenance:

During the last two centuries the picture changed hands fairly frequently, but precise details of the facts of ownership have not yet come to light in all cases. The available evidence is as follows:
Probably de Merval, his sale, Paris, May 9, 1768, lot 100
Sir Joshua Reynolds, by 1775, his sale, Christie’s, London, March 17, 1795, lot 84, according to Caracciolo and Earlom [1]
Noel Desenfans, his sale, March 18, 1802, according to Smith [2]
Lord Carrington, by 1842
The Reverend J. Staniforth, by 1857, according to Waagen 1857 [3]
Hart Davis collection, according to Waagen 1857, but unconfirmed
Probably lot 85, W. A. L. Fletcher sale, Christie’s, London, 1914
Bought Cohen
Asscher, London, ca. 1941
Lady Dunsany, London, ca. 1954, her sale, Christie’s, London, November 25, 1966, lot 67
Bought Owen. The sale catalogue adds John Bolton and Annabella, Lady Boughey, to the list of previous owners, both unconfirmed
Acquired by the Putnam Foundation, 1969

Provenance Notes:

[1] L. Caracciolo, with engraved reproductions by Richard Earlom, Liber Veritatis di Claudio Gelee (Rome, 1815). In 1775, while the painting was in the possession of Sir Joshua Reynolds, an engraving after it was made by John Pye the Elder.

[2] John Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters, 9 vols. (London, 1829–42), 8:245–46, perhaps also no. 346, and 9: supplement, p. 807, no. 12

[3] G. F. Waagen, Galleries and Cabinets of Art in Great Britain, 4. vols. (London, 1857), 4:427–28