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Artist or Maker: Attributed to Claude Lorrain (Chamagne c. 1604/5-1682 Rome)
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Provenance: Dézallier d'Argenville Collection by 1720.
D'Argenville sale; Rémy, Paris, 3 March 1776, lot 49, to Boileau.
Benjamin West, P.R.A. sales; Christie's, London, 24 June 1820 (bought in) and 16 July 1831
Samuel Rogers, Esq.; Christie's, London, 28 April 1856, lot 624 (660 gns.)
I.G. Fordham, Esq., from whom purchased by
Baroness Burdett-Coutts.
Anonymous sale; Christie's, London, 4 May 1922, lot 101.
with Durlacher, New York, by whom sold to Mrs. Eugene Atwood, New York on 15 May 1934 for $3,800 and by descent to
Mrs. Frank F. Dodge and by descent to the present owners.
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Exhibited: New York, Durlacher Brothers, Claude Lorrain, 1938, no. 4.
Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum, 1931, no. 23.
Baltimore, Gilman Hall, The Johns Hopkins University, Landscape Painting from Patinir to Hubert Robert, November - December 1941, no. 44, as 'Landscape with a mill' by Claude Lorrain.
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Literature: Dézallier d'Argenville, Voyage Pictoresque de Paris, 1757, no. 261 and 1765, no. 243.
G.F. Waagen, Treasures of art in Great Britain, London, 1854, II, p. 78.
W. Whitley, Artists and their Friends in England 1700-1799, London, 1928, 11, 31.
M. Röthlisberger, Claude Lorrain: The Drawings, University of California Press, 1968, under no. 126.
M. Kitson, Claude Lorrain: Liber Veritatis, Oxford, 1978, under no. 11, p. 59 (as 'apparently a copy').
M. Röthlisberger, Claude Lorrain: The Paintings, New York, 1979, no. 11, p. 118, as by 'Claude Lorrain'.
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Notes: PROPERTY FROM A FAMILY COLLECTION
This lovely, poetic canvas poses something of a problem since another exact version of the composition exists, of equally high quality, painted on copper rather than canvas and it has been universally given to Claude. That version was in the collection of the Earl of Haddington, Mellerstain, until 1968, when it was sold at Christie's London (29 November 1968, lot 74). It is authentically signed 'CLAUD' on the tree trunk at right, and falsely 'signed and dated' in a later hand in the ground at right 'CLAUDIO 1641' (according to Michael Kitson, Claude Lorrain: Liber Veritatis, Oxford, 1978, p. 58). A drawing of the composition, ink on blue paper, appears as number 11 in Claude's Liber Veritatis (British Museum, London), the remarkable album in which Claude recorded each of his painted compositions in roughly chronological order. Both the handling of the two painted versions and placement of the composition in the Liber Veritatis suggest a date of execution around 1636/7.
Marcel Röthlisberger has examined the present work in person (December 2005) and endorses its attribution to Claude. Professor Röthlisberger did observe, however, that he knows of no other instance in which Claude painted two versions of a composition on different supports, and he noted that the octagonal format of the composition (found in both versions and the drawing) was more usual for paintings on copper.
The patron of the original painting is unknown, though Claude's autograph inscription on the drawing identifies that it was 'faict pour un ligiois a Roma a la secreterie' ('made for a native of Liege at the Rome Segreteria' - probably the secretary's office at the papal court). Particularly interesting is the provenance of the present work, which belonged to the distinguished eighteenth century collector and connoisseur Dezallier d'Argenville (it appeared in his sale in 1766, where it was identified as painted on canvas); an eighteenth century inscription on the drawing of the composition in the Liber Veritatis, perhaps added by Dezallier d'Argenville himself, reads 'Paris chez Mr D'argenville Secretaire du Roy'.
