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We look slightly down onto a group of people gathered along the bank of a river that winds around a copse of tall trees to our left, past a hill to our right, and into the deep distance in this horizontal landscape painting. The horizon line comes about a third of the way up the painting. More than a dozen people gather to converse in pairs or trios, or work loading a ship in the lower right corner of the composition. Most of the people seem to be men, except for two women who stand near a man who gestures to our left at the lower center of the painting. The people we can see have light or tanned skin. The men loading the boat to our right wear pants and shirts in navy blue, gray, tan, or crimson red. Men wearing hats and capes over suits near the lower center, and the women wear clothing in olive green, butter yellow, petal pink, coral red, or gray. Goods are strewn along the riverbank closest to us, including potted flowering plants to our left, a jumble of chairs, tables, and musical instruments nearby, and collections of wooden barrels to our right and in the lower left corner. Two more boats are moored at the shore in front of the grove of tall, dark green, leafy trees that take up the left third of the composition. The sage-green surface of the river curves to our right, to a tree-covered hill with a watermill at its base. A stone structure with a large, central, round tower sits along the top of that hill. The river continues to wind into the deep distance, where towns nestle along the bases of rolling, slate-blue mountains along the horizon. The sky above is pale yellow along the horizon and deepens to pale blue above. Smoke-gray clouds sweeping in from the right are lit bright cream-white where the sun catches the edges. The artist signed and dated the painting as if he had written his name on the side of the boat in the lower left corner, though the inscription appears to be incomplete: “CLAVDIO o I Vo 16 9 OM.”

Claude Lorrain

Landscape with Merchants, c. 1629

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 36

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 97.2 x 143.6 cm (38 1/4 x 56 9/16 in.)

Credit Line

Samuel H. Kress Collection

Accession Number

1952.5.44

Artists / Makers

Claude Lorrain (painter) French, 1604/1605 - 1682

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Inscription

lower left on gunwale of boat in brown paint: CLAVDIO o I_Vo16_9[R?]OM_

Provenance

Robert Trevor Hampden, 1st viscount Hampden [1705-1783], by 1771;[1] by inheritance to his son, Thomas Trevor Hampden, 2nd viscount Hampden [1746-1824]; probably by inheritance to his brother, John Trevor Hampden, 3rd viscount Hampden [1749-1824]; probably by inheritance to his wife, Harriet, viscountess Hampden [née Burton, d. 1829]; by inheritance to Jane Maria, viscountess Hampden [second wife of the 2nd Viscount, d. 1833], either from her husband, his brother the 3rd viscount, or the 3rd viscount's wife; (Hampden sale, Christie & Manson, London, 19 April 1834, no. 85); purchased by Mr. Brown. (sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 18 December 1920, no. 38). (Galerie Jean Charpentier, Paris), by 1926.[2] (Wildenstein & Co., Paris, New York, and London); sold 1947 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1952 to NGA.

[1] By compliance with the will of John Hampden, his maternal great-grandfather, Robert Trevor assumed the name and arms of Hampden; he was created viscount Hampden of Hampden in 1776, at which time he changed his family name from Trevor to Hampden. Trevor's name is on a 1771 reproductive print of the painting.

[2] Marcel Röthlisberger, Claude Lorrain: The Paintings, 2 vols., New Haven, 1961: 1:535.

[3] See The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1221.

Associated Names

Brown, Mr.
Christie, Manson & Woods, Ltd.
Drouot, Hôtel
Galerie Charpentier
Hampden, 1st viscount Hampden, Robert Trevor
Hampden, 2nd viscount Hampden, Thomas Trevor
Hampden, 3rd viscount Hampden, John Trevor
Hampden, Viscountess Hampden, Harriet
Hampden, Viscountess Hampden, Jane Maria
Kress Foundation, Samuel H.
Wildenstein & Co., Inc.

Exhibition History

1982: Claude Gellée dit Le Lorrain: 1600-1682, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, 1982-1983, no. 5, repro.

Bibliography

1829: Smith, John. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters. 9 vols. London, 1829 – 1842: 8(1837):374, no. 400.

1951: Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection Acquired by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation 1945-1951. Introduction by John Walker, text by William E. Suida. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1951: 220, no. 98, repro.

1959: Cooke, Hereward Lester. French Paintings of the 16th-18th Centuries in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 1959 (Booklet Number Four in Ten Schools of Painting in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.): 16, color repro.

1959: Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 342, repro.

1960: Knab, Eckhart. "Die Anfänge des Claude Lorrain." Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien 56, neue Folge 20 (1960): 141-142, fig. 174.

1961: Röthlisberger, Marcel. Claude Lorrain: The Paintings. 2 vols. New Haven, 1961 (reprint New York, 1979): 1:no. 279; 2:fig. 345.

1965: Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 28.

1968: National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 21, repro.

1969: Röthlisberger, Marcel. "Claude Lorrain in the National Gallery of Art." Studies in the History of Art (1969-1970):34-57, repro.

1975: European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 72, repro.

1975: Röthlisberger, Marcel, and Doretta Cecchi. L'opera completa di Claude Lorrain. Milan, 1975: no. 20, repro.

1977: Eisler, Colin. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian. Oxford, 1977: 282-283, fig. 253, as Lading Vessels on the Po.

1977: Röthlisberger, Marcel, and Doretta Cecchi. Tout l'oeuvre peint de Claude Lorrain. Paris, 1977: no. 19, repro.

1983: Russell, H. Diane. Claude Gellée dit Le Lorrain. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington; Galeries nationales due Grand Palais, Paris, 1982-1983. Paris, 1983: no. 5, repro.

1984: Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 313, no. 412, color repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 90, repro.

1992: Marx, Leo. "Does Pastoralism Have a Future?" Studies in the History of Art 36 (1992): 215, 218, repro. no. 3.

1995: Stokstad, Marilyn. Art History. New York, 1995: 774, fig. 19-28.

1998: Köfuku, Akira. Claude Lorrain and the Ideal Landscape. Exh. cat. National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, 1998: 176, 216, fig. 3.

1999: Stokstad, Marilyn. Art History. 2 vols. Revised ed. New York, 1999: 774, fig. 19-24.

2004: Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 175, no. 134, color repro.

2005: Baillio, Joseph, et al. The Arts of France from François Ier to Napoléon Ier. A Centennial Celebration of Wildenstein's Presence in New York. Exh. cat. Wildenstein & Co., Inc., New York, 2005: 51, fig. 9, 71 (not in the exhibition).

2009: 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. 19, 97-101, color repro.