Commissioned by the Surgeon Monsieur Nicolas Larché (1602-1665);
Probably with the brothers Pietro (1760-1833) and Vincenzo Camuccini (1771-1844), Rome, by 1815;
Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's, December 6, 2006, lot 42;
Whereby acquired by the present owner.

L. Caracciolo, Liber Veritatis di Claudio Gellée, Rome 1815, no. 102;
J. Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné....., vol. VIII, London 1837, p. 245, no. 102;
M. Röthlisberger, Claude Lorrain, The Paintings, London 1961, vol. I, pp. 264-5, under cat. no. LV 102, the Liber Veritatis drawing reproduced vol. II, fig. 183.

ENGRAVED:
(The drawing only) by Richard Earlom for Boydell' s Edition of the Liber Veritatis, London 1777.

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com , an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting appears to have been fairly recently restored. The canvas lining is quite recent and it seems that the picture was cleaned at this time, but the paint layer may still be dirty. Some milkiness has developed in the trees and in the reflection of the water on the right side. There are areas where the paint is slightly raised in the trees on the left. It is more than likely that there is some retouching addressing thinness in the mountains in the distance on the right but it seems unlikely that further restorations exist in any quantity anywhere else in the picture. This picture could be hung as is, however, despite its fairly recent restoration, it may improve with further cleaning.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

This beautiful little arcadian landscape was only recently restored to Claude's oeuvre for the first time in over three centuries. It is recorded by Claude himself in a drawing in his Liber Veritatis, the drawn record he kept of all his landscape paintings after 1635 (see Fig. 1) and now preserved in the British Museum, London. From its placement in the Liber Veritatis this landscape may be dated to around 1646 or 1647. The drawing follows it in every detail; a young shepherd boy ushers a small herd of cattle across a ford, while beyond them a cascade glitters in the warm evening light. The shepherd's classical rather than contemporary dress is no doubt intended to hint at the arcadian idylls of the past as well as the timeless nature of the scene.  In design it clearly recalls the earlier and larger Pastoral landscape of 1644 today in the De Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, where the motifs of the fording cattle, the ruined castle and the cascade also appear. In terms of its more intimate scale and mood it is comparable also to the small Pastoral in the Ellesmere Collection, and may well have been painted in the same year.¹

According to Claude's own annotations on the Liber Veritatis drawing, this was one of two paintings commissioned by the eminent French surgeon Nicolas Larché (1602-1665). The other, recorded by drawing 39 in the Liber, was painted a few years earlier in 1639, but the original has not survived. Larché was a famous surgeon in Rome, who came from the diocese of Rheims. According to Passeri, Larché gave Poussin some instruction in anatomy.  The painting's history is thereafter obscure until the 19th century, when according to Caracciolo (see Literature)  the painting then belonged to the Camuccini brothers in Rome.  Pietro and Vincenzo Camuccini were dealers, restorers and painters in their own right. They owned a remarkable collection which from 1851 hung in the 16th-century Palazzo Cesi in Rome. They sold pictures to a number of English noblemen passing through Rome on the Grand Tour, most famously when Vincenzo's son Giovanni Battista sold seventy-four pictures to Algernon Percy, 4th Duke of Northumberland, in 1856. These included, for example, Claude's Seaport of 1637, originally painted for Pope Urban VIII.²  Thereafter, however, the painting's history is unknown. Smith (see LIterature) records a pain🌱ting of this description, but not of these dimensions, sold at Stanleys in London i💮n 1830.

 

1. For which see Roethlisberger, under Literature, vol. I, pp. 230-32, and 263-64, nos. 81 and 101, reproduced vol. II, figs. 154 and 182.
2. Ibid., p. 124, no. 14. The original remains in situ at Alnwick.