Claude Lorrain

Claude Lorrain (born Claude Gellée, c. 1600–1682) was a Baroque painter, draughtsman, and etcher from the Duchy of Lorraine. Though often called simply Claude in English, he spent nearly his entire career in Italy and is remembered as one of the first major artists—outside of the Dutch Golden Age—to focus on landscape painting. His landscapes frequently edged into the more respected category of history painting by including a few small figures, usually drawn from the Bible or classical myths.

By the late 1630s, he had become the leading landscape painter in Italy, commanding high fees. Over time, his landscapes grew larger, featured fewer figures, were painted with greater care, and were produced less often. He was not generally an innovator in landscape painting, except for his frequent inclusion of the sun and streaming sunlight, which had been uncommon before. Today he is considered a French painter, but he was born in the independent Duchy of Lorraine and did almost all his painting in Italy; before the late 19th century, he was regarded as part of the "Roman School." His patrons were mostly Italian, but after his death he became extremely popular with English collectors, and the United Kingdom still holds a large share of his works.

He produced many drawings in pen and often in monochrome watercolor wash (usually brown, sometimes grey). Chalk was occasionally used for under-drawing, and white highlighting in various media might be added; other colors, like pink, were much rarer. These drawings fall into three main groups. First, numerous sketches, mostly of landscapes, often made on-site—these have been highly admired and influenced other artists. Second, studies for paintings, ranging from rough to finished, many clearly done before or during the painting process, while others were likely made afterward. This was certainly true for the third group: the 195 drawings recording finished paintings in his *Liber Veritatis* (now in the British Museum). He produced over 40 etchings, often simplified versions of his paintings, mainly before 1642. These served various purposes for him, but are now considered far less important than his drawings. He also painted frescoes early in his career, which helped build his reputation, though nearly all are now lost.

The earliest biographies of Claude come from Joachim von Sandrart’s *Teutsche Academie* (1675) and Filippo Baldinucci’s *Notizie* (1682–1728). Both men knew the painter personally, but at very different times—Sandrart at the start of Claude’s career, Baldinucci shortly before his death. Sandrart knew him well and lived with him for a while; Baldinucci was probably less close and got much of his information from Claude’s nephew, who lived with the artist.

Claude’s tombstone gives 1600 as his birth year, but contemporary sources suggest a later date, around 1604 or 1605. He was born in the small village of Chamagne, Vosges, then part of the Duchy of Lorraine, the third of five sons of Jean Gellée and Anne Padose. According to Baldinucci, both parents died when he was twelve, and he then lived in Freiburg with an older brother, Jean Gellée, an artist specializing in inlay work who taught him the basics of drawing. Claude then traveled to Italy, first working for Goffredo Wals in Naples, then joining the workshop of Agostino Tassi in Rome.

Sandrart’s account of Claude’s early years is quite different, and modern scholars generally prefer it or try to combine the two. According to Sandrart, Claude did poorly at village school and was apprenticed to a pastry baker. With a group of fellow cooks and bakers (Lorraine was famous for its pastry), he traveled to Rome and eventually became a servant and cook for Tassi, who later made him an apprentice and taught him drawing and painting. Both Wals and Tassi were landscapists—Wals very obscure and producing small works, while Tassi (known for the rape of Artemisia Gentileschi) ran a large workshop specializing in fresco schemes for palaces.

Though the details of Claude’s life before the 1620s remain unclear, most modern scholars agree he was apprenticed to Wals around 1620–1622, and to Tassi from about 1622–23 to 1625. Baldinucci reports that in 1625 Claude returned to Lorraine to train with Claude Deruet, working on the backgrounds of a lost fresco scheme, but left his studio relatively soon, in 1626 or 1627. He then returned to Rome and settled in a house on the Via Margutta, near the Spanish Steps and Trinità dei Monti, staying in that neighborhood for the rest of his life.

On his travels, Claude briefly stayed in Marseille, Genoa, and Venice, and had the chance to study nature in France, Italy, and Bavaria. Sandrart met Claude in the late 1620s and reported that by then the artist had a habit of sketching outdoors, especially at dawn and dusk, making oil studies on the spot. The first dated painting by Claude, *Landscape with Cattle and Peasants* (1629, Philadelphia Museum of Art), already shows a well-developed style and technique. Over the next few years, his reputation grew steadily, as seen in commissions from the French ambassador in Rome (1633) and Philip IV of Spain (1634–35). Baldinucci noted that a particularly important commission came from Cardinal Guido Bentivoglio, who was impressed by two landscapes Claude painted for him and recommended the artist to Pope Urban VIII. Four paintings were made for the Pope between 1635 and 1638—two large and two small on copper. From this point, Claude’s reputation continued to rise.