Claude Lorrain

Watermark: none.
This sheet is not related to a painting by Claude and there is some question over the exact scene depicted. Halting his chariot, a seated leader drinks from a helmet offered to him by a servant. The subject might be clarified by a painting, identified by Roethlisberger, ascribed to a follower of the artist, now at Kedleston Hall. It is not clear if the picture reproduces a lost work or is a pastiche incorporating Claudian elements. The subject is an episode from the Life of Artaxerxes. The source is Plutarch's Life of Artaxerxes, which Claude seems to have used only for this sheet. Wracked by thirst in the middle of a battle, the Persian king is given a drink of water by a servant. The text notes that the water was contained in a “wretched skin” while here Claude shows a helmet of water being proffered. This detail conflates the tale with that of Alexander, who was offered water in a soldier's helmet, only to pour it out since there was insufficient supply for his troops. This same scene takes place in the left foreground of the Kedleston canvas, which contains a broad landscape view. The figures in the present sheet correspond closely, but not exactly, to those in the painting.
The album from which this sheet derives is traditionally considered to be from the collection of Queen Christina of Sweden (1629-89). At her death, Christina's drawings collection was inherited by Decio Azzolino (1623-89), who died two months after Christina. A group of drawings by Claude, now in the Teylers Museum, were then purchased by Don Livio Odescalchi. For works outside the Teylers Museum group, the provenance before Odescalchi cannot be confirmed and the first documented appearance of the album that contained the present sheet is in Odescalchi's 1713 inventory. This sheet is likely one of the eight that the dealer Hans Calmann excised from the album in 1958 while it still belonged to the Odescalchi family, under the aegis of Donato Sanminiatelli, before the sale of the volume to Georges Wildenstein in 1960.