Claude Lorrain was a painter, draughtsman and etcher of the Baroque era originally from the Duchy of Lorraine. He spent most of his life in Italy, and is one of the earliest significant artists, aside from his contemporaries in Dutch Golden Age painting, to concentrate on landscape painting. His landscapes often transitioned into the more prestigious genre of history paintings by addition of a few small figures, typically representing a scene from the Bible or classical mythology.
Paintings by Claude Lorrain
The Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba (1648)
Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba is an oil painting by Claude Lorrain (born Claude Gellée, traditionally known as Claude), in the National Gallery, London, signed and dated 1648. The large oil-on-canvas painting was commissioned by Frédéric Maurice de La Tour d'Auvergne, Duc de Bouillon, general of the Papal army, together with Claude's Landscape with the Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca, also now in the National Gallery. It depicts the departure of the Queen of Sheba to visit King Solomon in Jerusalem, described in the tenth chapter of the First Book of Kings. A more usual subject would be their meeting; this is one of many harbour scenes painted by Claude. The Queen is departing from a city with classical buildings, with the early morning Sun lighting the sea, as vessels are loaded.
The composition draws the eye to a group of people on the steps to the right, at the intersection of a line of perspective (the steps) and a strong vertical (the left column of the building's portico). The Queen wears a pink tunic, royal blue cloak, and golden crown, and is about to board a waiting launch to take her to her ship – perhaps the ship partially concealed by the pillars to the left, or the one further out to sea, over the picture's vanishing point.
Landscape with the Finding of Moses (1639)
Landscape with the Finding of Moses is an oil painting on canvas of 1639–40 by Claude Lorrain, one of a series commissioned from the artist by Philip IV of Spain for the Palacio del Buen Retiro. It is now in the collection of the Museo del Prado.
Landscape with Ascanius Shooting the Stag of Sylvia (1682)
Landscape with Ascanius Shooting the Stag of Sylvia is a painting of 1682 in oil on canvas by Claude Lorrain (Claude Gellée, traditionally just "Claude" in English), a painter from the Duchy of Lorraine who spent his career in Rome. It was painted in Rome for Prince Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna (1637–1689), Claude's most important patron in his last years, and is now in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. It is signed, dated with the year, and inscribed with the subject (at centre bottom), as Claude sometimes did with his less common subjects.
It was Claude's last painting, and is perhaps not quite finished; it therefore does not appear in the Liber Veritatis, where he made drawings to record his finished works. His date of birth is uncertain, but he was at least in his late seventies when he painted it, perhaps as old as 82. It was a pendant to his painting, completed six years earlier, View of Carthage with Dido and Aeneas (or Aeneas's Farewell to Dido in Carthage, 1676, now Kunsthalle, Hamburg), another scene from the Aeneid, coming earlier than this one. This was the last of Claude's many harbour scenes. With the Oxford painting hung on the left, the groups of figures in each face inwards, and the main buildings frame the outsides of the pair. Both paintings feature large columns on a classical building, a punning reference to the Colonna family, who included such a column in their coat of arms.
Seaport with the Embarkation of Saint Ursula (1641)
Seaport with the Embarkation of Saint Ursula is an oil painting on canvas of 1641 by Claude Lorrain, signed and dated by the artist. The work was produced for Fausto Poli, who two years later was made a cardinal by Pope Urban VIII. It is now in the National Gallery in London, which acquired it in 1824 as part of the collection of John Julius Angerstein.
Landscape with Tobias and Raphael (1600)
Landscape with Tobias and Raphael is a 1639-40 painting by Claude Lorrain, one of a series of paintings commissioned from the artist for the Palacio del Buen Retiro and now in the Prado Museum in Madrid.
It is one of a number of Claude's landscape paintings that is promoted to a more prestigious history painting by the addition of small figures from a narrative subject. These are either from classical mythology or religion, the latter rather more popular with Spanish collectors. In this case the standard subject of Tobias and the Angel from the Book of Tobit has been chosen, which traditionally has a setting in a wide landscape.
The Flight into Egypt (Lorrain) (1635)
The Flight into Egypt is a 1635 oil painting by French artist Claude Lorrain, located in the Indianapolis Museum of Art, which is in Indianapolis, Indiana. It depicts the Flight into Egypt, when the Holy Family fled to Egypt to escape Herod's persecution.
This early painting by Claude shows Joseph, Mary, and Jesus fleeing the massacre in Bethlehem. In a prefiguration of his future role, the infant Jesus holds the donkey's reins. Although the trio is escaping a slaughter, Claude depicted them in a serene setting. Landscapes like this made Claude famous by combining a rustic vocabulary of shepherds and towering trees with realistic portrayals of the Roman countryside. He perfected his depictions of the latter by risking malaria in order to make the sketches that would allow him to capture the campagna's golden sunlight and atmospheric effects. The Holy Family may be the subject, but the real focus is on light, not narrative. Claude's idealized, Acadian landscape is a study of light and atmosphere in which the religious theme is secondary.
The Trojan Women Set Fire to their Fleet (Claude Lorrain) (1643)
The Trojan Women Set Fire to their Fleet is a mid-17th century painting by the French artist Claude Lorrain, in oils on canvas. It is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Claude Lorrain painted The Trojan Women Set Fire to their Fleet around 1643 at the behest of Cardinal Girolamo Farnese. The scene is Lorrain's take on a famed event in Book 5 of the Aeneid in which the exiled women of Troy, spurred on by the Greek goddess Juno, burn the Trojan fleet to force their men to stop roaming and settle in Sicily. However, Aeneas prays to the god Jupiter to save the ships from the flames by summoning a rainstorm; this is alluded to by Lorrain via his inclusion of dark clouds in the top right of the painting.
Village Fête (Claude Lorrain) (1639)
Village Fête (or in Fr. La Fête villageoise) is an oil-on-canvas painting of a village fête by the French Baroque painter Claude Lorrain (real name Claude Gellée), painted in 1639 and given to Louis XIV in 1693 together with its companion Seaport at Sunset, by the landscape architect and gardener André Le Nôtre. It is now in the Louvre, in Paris.
Claude's Liber Veritatis, a register in which he recorded and drew the paintings he had done, has a note on the back of the drawing for the Fête (No. 13) that the picture had been painted for Urban VIII. Other sources also state that the artist painted a Village Fête and a Seaport at Sunset for Urban VIII, but these two paintings were sold by Prince Barberini in 1798. The Louvre painting must therefore be a replica painted by Claude Lorrain after the lost original. Another copy is in the possession of Lord Yarborough in England (called Landscape with Rural Dance), and yet another was in the Stroganov collection, St. Petersburg. Several other replicas and copies exist.
The Rape of Europa (Claude Lorrain) (1655)
The Rape of Europa is an oil on canvas painting by Claude Lorrain, from 1655. With its pendant The Battle of the Milvian Bridge, it is now in the Pushkin Museum, in Moscow.
The work was painted in Rome, with sketch 136 in his Liber Veritatis equating to it. Below that sketch is the inscription "facto al pio Cardinal […] creato pero giusto pap […]" ("made for the pious cardinal […] elected pope […]") - the word "Cardinal" is very close to the edge of the sheet and it seems likely that the name of the commissioner was cut off when binding the scattered sheets of the diary together. He was Fabio Chigi, elected Pope Alexander VII on 7 April 1655. A preparatory ink and pencil sketch is now in the Kupferstichkabinett Berlin of the Berlin State Museums.
Landscape with the Burial of St Serapia (1639)
Landscape with the Burial of St. Serapia is a 1639–40 oil painting by the French artist Claude Lorrain. It was one of several paintings commissioned from the artist on behalf of King Philip IV of Spain. It is now in the collection of the Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain.
The painting depicts the funeral of Saint Serapia, a slave to Saint Sabina, with Sabina and others in attendance. Serapia's martyrdom occurred in Vindena, now known to have been sited near Terni. At the time the painting was produced, it was thought to be located on the Aventine Hill, hence the Basilica of Santa Sabina.
Landscape with St Paula of Rome Embarking at Ostia (1639)
Landscape with Saint Paula of Rome Embarking at Ostia or The Embarkation of Saint Paula is an oil-on-canvas painting by Claude Lorrain. It was painted in 1639–1640 as one of a series of works commissioned by Philip IV of Spain for a gallery of landscapes at the Palacio del Buen Retiro – he also commissioned works from Nicolas Poussin, Herman van Swanevelt, Jan Both, Gaspard Dughet and Jean Lemaire. It is now in the Museo del Prado in Madrid.
The series Lorrain produced for the Palacio del Buen Retiro included four in horizontal format, completed during 1635–1638 (Landscape with the Temptation of St Anthony, Landscape with St Onuphrius, Landscape with St María de Cervelló and a lost work) and four in a vertical format, completed during 1639–1641 (Landscape with Tobias and Raphael, Landscape with Saint Paula of Rome Embarking at Ostia, Landscape with the Finding of Moses and Landscape with the Burial of St Serapia). The theme of saints and biblical figures (in this case Paula of Rome leaving Ostia) was imposed on the artist by the count-duke of Olivares, who directed the work.
Landscape with Apollo and Marsyas (1639)
Landscape with Apollo and Marsyas is an oil on canvas painting by Claude Lorrain, created c. 1639. It is held now in the Pushkin Museum, in Moscow.
The artist recorded it in his Liber Veritatis as number 45, captioned "made for monsier Perochet", meaning the art collector Guillaume Perochet, for whom Lorrain produced four works in total between 1637 and 1639. It was in the Crozat collection from 1755, which was bought in its entirety by Catherine the Great for the Hermitage Museum, from which it was transferred to its present home in 1924.