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The Herdsman
Claude Lorrain·17th or 18th century
Historical Context
This pastoral scene by a follower of Claude Lorrain continues the classical landscape tradition that Claude established as the dominant mode of ideal landscape painting in the seventeenth century. Claude's compositions — with their framing trees, golden light, and distant horizons — were endlessly copied and adapted by followers well into the eighteenth century. Such works served the persistent market demand for Claudian landscapes among European collectors.
Technical Analysis
The painting follows Claude's compositional formulas — repoussoir trees, warm atmospheric recession, and figures in a pastoral setting. The golden tonality and soft transitions of light attempt to replicate Claude's poetic evocation of an idealized Italian countryside, though with less subtlety than the master.
Provenance
Jean-Joseph-Pierre-Augustin Lapeyrière [1779-1831, known as Augustin Lapeyrière, then Augustin de Lapeyrière]; (his sale, Henry at Galerie Le Brun, Paris, 19 April 1825 and days following [originally scheduled for 14 March and days following], no. 72).[1] Chevalier Sébastien Érard [1752-1831], Château de la Muette, near the Bois de Boulogne, Paris; (his estate sale, at his residence by Lacoste and Coutelier, 7-14 August 1832 [originally scheduled for 23 April and days following], no. 183);[2] bought by Dougas. William Williams Hope [1802-1855], Rushton Hall, Northamptonshire, and Paris; (his estate sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 11 May 1858, no. 1); bought for Baron James de Rothschild [1792-1868]; his son, Baron Gustave Salomon de Rothschild [1829-1911]; his daughter Aline de Rothschild Sassoon [1865-1909]; her husband Sir Edward Sassoon [1856-1912]; their daughter, Sybil Sassoon [1894-1989, who married in 1913 George Horatio Charles, 5th marquess of Cholmondeley], Houghton Hall, Norfolk; sold 1939 to (Wildenstein & Co., Paris, New York, and London);[3] sold 1945 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[4] gift 1946 to NGA. [1] Lapeyrière is identified on the title page of the sale catalogue as "receveur general des contributions du Département de la Seine." An annotation in the NGA Library's copy appears to give a buyer's name that is not entirely legible: "Const. . ." [2] This sale was incorrectly published in the NGA systematic catalogue as being held in 1831, and originally scheduled only for April 23 (Conisbee, Philip, et al. _French Paintings of the Fifteenth through the Eighteenth Century_. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2009: no. 22, 109). [3] See Lady Sybil Cholmondeley, letters to John Walker, 11 October 1965 and 3 February 1969, in NGA curatorial files. [4] See The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2190.
