Claude Lorrain
1600-1682
The Magdalen in the Desert
ca. 1655
4 1/4 x 5 1/4 inches (110 x 130 mm)
Pen and brown ink and wash, over black chalk, on paper.
III, 79a
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) in 1909.
Notes
Watermark: laid down.
Marcel Roethlisberger considered the present sheet “unmistakably inspired by Polidoro's landscape with the Magdalen” in S. Silvestro al Quirinale, Rome. Claude altered Polidoro's composition by moving the left hand section to the middle distance and enlarging the right foreground. Roethlisberger dates the drawing to the middle 1650s, because of certain similarities to a Liber Veritatis composition of that date (LV 152; British Museum, London). Claude also produced a drawing after the pendant fresco by Polidoro devoted to St. Catherine (Roethlisberger 762).
The drawing shares a mount with III, 79, a view of the Tiber with the Temple of Vesta, now considered by an artist in the circle of Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi. On the verso of the mount is Richardson's shelfmark along with a pasted patch containing an old inscription “Claudio Lorenese,” presumably trimmed from the sheet before it was mounted.
Marcel Roethlisberger considered the present sheet “unmistakably inspired by Polidoro's landscape with the Magdalen” in S. Silvestro al Quirinale, Rome. Claude altered Polidoro's composition by moving the left hand section to the middle distance and enlarging the right foreground. Roethlisberger dates the drawing to the middle 1650s, because of certain similarities to a Liber Veritatis composition of that date (LV 152; British Museum, London). Claude also produced a drawing after the pendant fresco by Polidoro devoted to St. Catherine (Roethlisberger 762).
The drawing shares a mount with III, 79, a view of the Tiber with the Temple of Vesta, now considered by an artist in the circle of Giovanni Francesco Grimaldi. On the verso of the mount is Richardson's shelfmark along with a pasted patch containing an old inscription “Claudio Lorenese,” presumably trimmed from the sheet before it was mounted.
Associated names
Richardson, Jonathan, 1665-1745, former owner.
Leighton of Stretton, Frederic Leighton, Baron, 1830-1896, former owner.
Murray, Charles Fairfax, 1849-1919
Morgan, J. Pierpont (John Pierpont), 1837-1913
Leighton of Stretton, Frederic Leighton, Baron, 1830-1896, former owner.
Murray, Charles Fairfax, 1849-1919
Morgan, J. Pierpont (John Pierpont), 1837-1913
Bibliography
Collection J. Pierpont Morgan : Drawings by the Old Masters Formed by C. Fairfax Murray. London : Privately printed, 1905-1912, III, 78, repr.
Roethlisberger, Marcel, Claude Lorrain. The Drawings, 1968, no. 763.
Roethlisberger, Marcel, Claude Lorrain. The Drawings, 1968, no. 763.
Artist
Classification
Century Drawings
School
Catalog link
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