Claude Gellée, called Claude Lorrain

The Rev. Lord Henry Wellesley (1794-1866), Oxford,

his sale, London, Sotheby's, 25 June 1866, lot 305;

with Paul Cassirer, Amsterdam, 1957;

Curtis O. Baer (1898-1976), New Rochelle and Atlanta (L.3366),

thence by descent;

sale, New York, Christie's, 22 January 2003, lot 61;

with W.M. Brady & Co., Inc., New York, French Drawings 1600-1900, 2004, no. 6

where acquired by the present owner

M. Roethlisberger, Claude Lorrain: The Paintings, New Haven 1961, I, pp. 450-1;

M. Roethlisberger, Claude Lorrain: The Drawings, Berkeley and Los Angeles 1968, I, no. 1029;

A. Zwollo, 'An additional study for Claude's picture "The Arrival of Aeneas at Pallantium"', Master Drawings, vol 8, 1970, p. 274

Cambridge, Fogg Art Museum, The Curtis O. Baer Collection, 1958, no. 39.

Atlanta, High Museum of Art, et al, Master Drawings from Titian to Picasso: The Curtis O. Baer Collection, (catalogue by Eric M. Zafran) 1985, no. 57

The subject portrayed in this composition is seldom represented pictorially; the narrative derives from the Homeric Hymn to Mercury which chronicles the feud between Apollo and Mercury. The dispute is ignited by Mercury stealing the cattle of Admetus, whose herd had been entrusted to Apollo. On discovery of the theft, Apollo protests to Jupiter, who, in turn, orders Mercury to return the cattle to Apollo. Claude's composition focuses on the moment of reconciliation between the brothers, where gifts are exchanged; Mercury presenting Apollo with a lyre and receiving in return a golden staff, the gifts becoming the respective attributes of these well-known mythological figures.

This is, at its core, a quintessential Claudian landscape, however, here the artist adapts the idyllic pastoral scene to explore and recount the mythological narrative. Whilst the landscape is often the protagonist of many of Claude's compositions, and a genre for which he is considered a revolutionary figure, here, in this particular study, it fulfils a more secondary role. It is, however, far from being relegated to the background, instead serving to compliment the figures and animals that dominate the composition. It is somewhat reminiscent of Claude's drawings from the so-called 'Animal Album' where the artist studies various animals in isolation. The landscape still includes all the wonderful elements that have become synonymous with Claude's poetic style: the little patch of foliage that flourishes in the lower right of the sheet, the leaves that adorn the trees in the distance and his mastery of media to create lyrical and energetic lines to convey the mountains and hills and the undulations of the terrain.

We also recognise the compositional devices that Claude employs so successfully throughout his oeuvre; the repoussoir effect, utilising the the rocky outcrop to create a framing element at the left section of the drawing and the gesturing outstretched hand of Mercury that leads the eye across to the herd of cattle. These subtle devices help create structure and balance but do not compromise the freedom and spontaneity of Claude's penmanship.

Another similar study, less complete in its rendering of the landscape and in reverse to the present sheet, is housed at the British Museum and is dated by Roethlisberger to circa 1671.¹ It is unclear whether either of these drawings was executed in preparation for a painted canvas. However, Claude did return to the subject later in his career, in 1677, in a more developed compositional drawing, now in Berlin.² That drawing relates to a now lost painting of 1679, commissioned by one of Claude's esteemed patrons, the Abbe Louis d'Anglure, Sieur de Bourlemont (1627-97), now known through Claude's drawn copy of the composition dated 1678 in the Liber Veritatis at the British Museum.³ All the studies do, in general, retain the disposition of the figures and cattle, which of course remain at the heart of the narrative, but the later versions depict a somewhat wider, expanded landscape that includes a river and a classical temple. As Roethlisberger noted, it was not uncommon for Claude to explore and advance motifs and themes he had employed in works from earlier in his career.

Once owned by the Rev. Dr Henry Wellesley, whose celebrated collection contained no fewer than 200 drawings by Claude, this strong and expressive study, boldly signed and dated, is a splendid example of Claude's imaginative and poetic draughtsmanship.

¹M. Roethlisberger, Claude Lorrain: The Drawings, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1968, no. 1028

²Roethlisberger, op.cit., no. 1111; Berlin Kupferstichkabinett, inv.no. kdZ 1476

³Ibid., no. 1112