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Landscape with trees and buildings (recto)

Maker

(artist)
1604-1682

Title

Date of Production

(circa) 1640 - 1646

Medium

graphite, black chalk with added wash, brown wash, with three framing lines of black chalk and one in brown ink (recto), black chalk (verso) on laid paper

Dimensions

Height: 22.3 cm
Width: 32.1 cm

Accession Number

D.1978.PG.214

Mode of Acquisition

Count Antoine Seilern, bequest, 1978

Credit

The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Copyright

Work in the public domain

Location

Not currently on display

Keywords

Label Text

Born in the French region of Lorraine, Claude established himself in Rome as a highly innovative painter and draughtsman. He had an important impact on later artists, including John Constable who described him as ‘the most perfect landscape painter the world ever saw’. His distinctive drawings are characterised by a thoughtful mixture of media. In his depiction of trees in this study sheet, the contrast and variation of graphite, chalk, ink and wash convey a sense of texture and volume as well as the interaction between light and shadow.

Provenance

part of the so-called 'Wildenstein album' first owned by Prince Livio Odescalchi (1653-1713) [documented in inventory taken at his death in 1713]; by descent to Maria Odescalchi, Rome (b. 1930) and her husband Count Donato Sanminiatelli (1929-1979) [as per Calmann's 1976 memoir]; eight sheets cut out of the album and purchased from them by Hans M. Calmann (1899-1982), 1957; purchased from him by Colnaghi (London), 24 October 1958; purchased there by Count Antoine Seilern, London (1901-1978), 24 October 1958 (£1,500); Princes Gate Bequest 1978 In Marcel Röthlsiberger, 'Claude Lorrain: The Wildenstein Album', 1962, he claimed that the album this drawing previously belonged to had been possibly selected by the artist for (and thus owned by) Queen Christina of Sweden (1626-1689), in Rome from 1655-1689, and then by Cardinal Decio Azzolini, Rome (1623-1689). Their names were subsequently included in the provenance of this drawing in the Washington and Paris 1982-83 and London 1991 exh. cats; however, this information has not yet been confirmed, so their names were omitted from the provenance listed in the London and New York 2012-13 exh. cat.

Exhibition History

Mantegna to Matisse - Master Drawings from The Courtauld Gallery, The Frick Collection, New York, 02/10/2012-27/01/2013

Mantegna to Matisse - Master Drawings from The Courtauld Gallery, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 14/06/2012-09/09/2012

Master Drawings from the Courtauld Collections, Courtauld Institute Galleries, London, 16/10/1991-19/01/1992 ...More

Drawing - Technique and Purpose, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, 28/01/1981-26/04/1981

The Art of Claude Lorrain, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne; Hayward Gallery, London, 27/09/1969-14/12/1969 ...Less

Literature

Mantegna to Matisse - Master Drawings from The Courtauld Gallery, Frick Collection, New York and Courtauld Gallery, London London 2012-2013
cat. no. 29
ill. on p. 417 (recto), p. 149 (detail of recto)
dated c. 1640-46

Master Drawings from the Courtauld Collections, Courtauld Institute Galleries, London, 1991
cat. no. 22
pp. 52, 176-77
ill. on p. 53 (recto and verso)
dated c. 1639-41

Claude Lorrain, 1600-1682, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. and Grand Palais, Paris, 1983
p. 231 under no. 29 ...More

Claude Lorrain (1600-1682) : an exhibition of paintings and drawings, partly from private collections, to mark the artist's tercentenary, Thomas Agnew & Sons, London, 9 November - 10 December 1982, 1982
p. 39 under no. 15

Drawing - Technique and Purpose, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1981
cat. no. 147
erroneously said to be no. 241 in Seilern 1961

Calmann, H.M., H.M. Calmann, Dealer in Old Master Drawings, 1976
pp. 71-72

Seilern, Count Antoine, Corrigenda and Addenda to the Catalogue of paintings and drawings at 56 Princes Gate, London, London 1971
no. 214

The Art of Claude Lorrain, Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1969
cat. no. 73

Roethlisberger, Marcel, Claude Lorrain: the drawings, Berkeley 1968; 2 vols
no. 471 on p. 200, and pp. 38, 42, 62, 193 under no. 448 (verso), 195 under no. 453
ill.
dated 1640-45

Roethlisberger, Marcel, Claude Lorrain: the Wildenstein Album, Paris 1962
p. 9

Roethlisberger, Marcel, 'Bemerkungen zum zeichnerischen Oeuvre von Claude Lorrain' in 'Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte', 1961; XXIV, 2
p. 176n11

Kitson, Michael, 'Claude's Books of Drawings from Nature' in 'Burlington Magazine', June 1961; CIII
pp. 253-57

Seilern, Count Antoine, Paintings and drawings of Continental Schools other than Flemish and Italian at 56 Princes Gate, London SW7, London 1961; III
no. 214
pls. XXXVIII, XXXIX
entry author: Michael Kitson; as Claude, dated c. 1640-6

Calmann, H.M., Dealer in Old Master drawings, 1958
no. 18
ill. ...Less

Inscriptions

Inscription: Recto: lower right corner, brown ink, artist’s hand: “27”. Verso: lower centre, red chalk, signed: “Claude / Ro IV”.

Collector's mark: none.

Watermark: none.

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