A boisterous group wends its way through a wooded landscape-musicians playing trumpets lead the way, and the rear is brought up by a woman balancing a basket on her head in conversation with a companion. This band of celebrants traverses a stone bridge on its way to a temple in the distance. The subject of pilgrims proceeding to offer a sacrifice at the ancient Greek temple at Delphi was one the artist explored in an expansive landscape painting of 1645. In this drawing Claude focused exclusively on the motif, capturing the liveliness of a crowd that in the canvas would be idealized and subdued. -- Exhibition Label, From "Poussin, Claude, and French Drawing in the Classical Age"
Inscribed on the verso in pen and brown ink, "IVR Claude Gelee".
Watermark: Six-pointed star.
Greville, Charles, 1762-1832, former owner.
Warwick, George Guy Greville, Earl of, 1818-1893, former owner.
Murray, Charles Fairfax, 1849-1919, former owner.
Morgan, J. Pierpont (John Pierpont), 1837-1913, former owner.
Collection J. Pierpont Morgan : Drawings by the Old Masters Formed by C. Fairfax Murray. London : Privately printed, 1905-1912, III, 76, repr.
Denison, Cara D., and Helen B. Mules, with the assistance of Jane V. Shoaf. European Drawings, 1375-1825. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1981, no. 53, repr.
Denison, Cara D. French Drawings, 1550-1825. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1984, no. 20.
Denison, Cara D. French Master Drawings in the Pierpont Morgan Library. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1993, no. 22, repr. in color.
From Leonardo to Pollock: Master drawings from the Morgan Library. New York: Morgan Library, 2006, cat. no. 73, p. 154-155.
Roethlisberger, Marcel, Claude Lorrain. The Drawings, 1968, no. 683b.