Attributed to Claude Gellée, called Claude Lorrain
Provenance
Welbore Ellis Agar (1735 – 1805) by 1784; and by bequest as part of his collection to his sons
Welbore Felix and Emmanuel Felix Agar.
Their Sale; Christie’s, London 2-3 May 1806, lot 26 (as by Claude Lorrain, ‘Paysage montuëux avec des figures et un troupeau qui passe une riviére [sic.] au gué: tableau d’un ton fraîche et agréable’); acquired before the sale en bloc with the whole Agar collection, by
William Seguier on behalf of
Robert, 2nd Earl Grosvenor, later 1st Marquess of Westminster (1767 – 1845), Eaton Hall, Cheshire; thence by descent in the collections of the Dukes of Westminster to
Gerald Grosvenor, 6th Duke of Westminster (1951 – 2016).
His Posthumous Sale; Christie’s, London, 30th April 2015, lot 513 (as follower of Claude Lorrain; see below).
Exhibitions
London, Royal Academy, Exhibition of the Works of the Old Masters, 1871, no. 192 (as by Claude Lorrain).
Literature
J. Young, Catalogue of the Pictures at Grosvenor House, London, 1821, no. 132 (as by Claude Lorrain).
A. Jameson, Companion to the Most Celebrated Private Galleries of Art in London, London, 1844, p. 249, no. 27 (as by Claude Lorrain).
Mme. Pattison, Claude Lorrain, sa vie et ses oeuvres, Paris, 1884, p. 235, no. 15 (as by Claude Lorrain).
P. Courthion, Claude Gellée, Paris, 1932, p. 56 (as by Claude Lorrain).
U. Christoffel, Poussin und Claude Lorrain, Munich, 1942, p. 146 (as by Claude Lorrain).
M. Röthlisberger, Claude Lorrain, New York, 1979, vol. I, p. 537, no. 282, vol. II (illus. fig. 366 (as by a follower of Claude Lorrain).
Like the vast majority of Claude’s oeuvre, this canvas would have been painted in Rome. His first trip to the city may have taken place as early as 1617 when, at the age of 12 or 13, his first biographer, Joachim von Sandrart, records him as working as a pastry cook. After an itinerant period during which he worked under Goffredo Wals in Naples and Claude Deruet in his native Lorraine, he returned once more to Rome and it was there that he was to remain, except for short trips elsewhere in Italy, for the rest of his long and highly productive life.
Stylistically, this work can be compared to his Landscape with Shepherds and Shepherdesses dancing, dated 1634, which together with this painting once formed part of the Agar/ Westminster collections. That our painting is broadly contemporaneous with that work is further indicated by its omission from the Liber Veritatis – the record Claude kept of his paintings after 1635, by which time he had been a productive artist for more than ten years.