Claude Lorrain

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Claude Lorrain

1600-1682

Landscape with Ruins

1663

Pen and brown ink and wash over black chalk, on paper prepared with a light brown wash; remains of chalk border at outer edges.

8 1/8 x 11 7/8 inches (205 x 301 mm)

Purchased by Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) in 1909.

III, 82a

Notes:

Claude produced this study for a seemingly minor background detail: a temple with four corinthian columns, four pilasters, and a ruined pediment, set in a hilly landscape. The temple appears at far left in Claude's painting Mercury and Battus, commissioned by a patron from Antwerp (who has yet to be identified) in 1663 (Dukes of Devonshire, Chatsworth). Roethlisberger noted its close correspondence with the painting, citing only the slightly lower placement of the trees at right in the drawing. He concluded it is likely a study for, and not after, the painting. The temple also appears less precisely drawn in a rich, monochromatic study for the painting (Louvre, Paris; RF4590). The painting is recorded in Claude's Liber Veritatis (British Museum, London).

Inscription:

Inscribed in pen and brown ink at lower right of old mount, "J: B."; on verso of old mount in pen and brown ink, "J:B No 337./12 by 8."; in different pen and brown ink, "P. No 18"

Provenance:

Arthur Pond (ca. 1705-1758), London (according to Marcel Roethlisberger; his inscription "P.N 18" on the reverse of mount; see Lugt 2038); John Barnard (1709-1784), London (Lugt 1419); Charles Fairfax Murray (1849-1919), London and Florence; from whom purchased through Galerie Alexandre Imbert, Rome, in 1909 by Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913), New York (no mark; see Lugt 1509); his son, J. P. Morgan, Jr. (1867-1943), New York.

Associated names:

Pond, Arthur, 1701-1758, former owner.
Barnard, John, d. 1784, former owner.
Murray, Charles Fairfax, 1849-1919, former owner.
Morgan, J. Pierpont (John Pierpont), 1837-1913, former owner.

Bibliography:

Roethlisberger, Marcel. Claude Lorrain. The Drawings, 1968, no. 894.

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