Spencer Alley: Figures in landscapes by Claude Lorrain, 17th century

Friday, April 8, 2016

Figures in landscapes by Claude Lorrain, 17th century

Claude Lorrain
Landscape with figures
ca. 1635-40
drawing
British Museum

Claude Lorrain
Landscape at La Crescenza
1662
drawing
British Museum

"The disparaging of Claude's ability to render the human form is a tradition dating back to the artist's lifetime. Joachim von Sandrart, who knew Claude around 1630, wrote in his biography of the artist: "however happy Claude is in representing well the naturalness of landscapes, so unhappy is he in figures and animals, be they only half a finger long, that they remain unpleasant in spite of the fact that he takes great pains and works hard on them." Baldinucci, who knew Claude at the end of his career, recalled the artist himself saying that he "sold the landscapes and gave away the figures."

– from curator's notes at the British Museum, home to a collection of more than 500 autograph drawings by Claude Lorrain (1600-1682). Most of these drawings came to the Museum in two large gifts. The first arrived in 1824, a stupendously beautiful collection assembled by Richard Payne Knight (1750-1824). The second group of 195 drawings were bound together in a sketchbook assembled by Claude himself, who referred to it as his Liber veritatis. These were his own drawings of his own completed paintings, with notes on their owners – a record intended to guard against the Claude forgeries that had already proliferated during his life. By 1728 the Liber veritatis had come into the possession of the 2nd Duke of Devonshire and was housed at Chatsworth. It remained there until 1957 when it was accepted in lieu of estate duty by the British government after the death of the 9th Duke.