drawing
- Museum number
- Oo,7.234
- Description
-
Landscape with St John the Baptist preaching; two herdsmen, one reclining, with goats in the foreground, other figures, two on a horse, beneath trees beyond at l, the saint at centre, behind him is a bridge. c.1656
Pen and brown ink, with brown wash, heightened with white; on buff paper
- Production date
- 1656
- Dimensions
-
Height: 331 millimetres
-
Width: 438 millimetres
- Curator's comments
- Though this drawing does not correspond to any extant painting, the existence of four further related drawings strongly indicates that they were all meant to be preparatory to an ambitious painting (for the others see Roethlisberger 1968, nos. 772–775). The present drawing is perhaps the most highly finished. It has a large, extended landscape setting with delicate depictions of the trees, shrubbery and animals. The figure of St John is situated in the mid-ground, but yet placed in shadow, perhaps to embed the religious scene within the landscape.
Lit.: A.M. Hind, 'Catalogue of the Drawings of Claude Lorrain preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings', London, 1926, no. 269; M. Roethlisberger, 'Claude Lorrain: The drawings catalog', 2 vols, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1968, no. 775.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1824
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- Oo,7.234
