Claude GELLÉE known as LE LORRAIN (Chamagne c. 1600 - Rome 1 - Lot 20

Claude GELLÉE known as LE LORRAIN (Chamagne c. 1600 - Rome 1682) Ascagne's Hunt Pen and brown ink, brown wash and white gouache highlights on blue paper H. 12.2 cm - L. 19 cm DB Inscribed lower right "Clodio Fecit". Small restored loss along bottom left edge The artist has reworked the edge of the foliage after the whites have been applied. Provenance: Former Richard Houlditch collection, stamped lower right (L.2215) Former JC. Robinson collection, stamped lower right (L.1433), possibly his sale May 7-8, 1868, Paris, a lot of 7 drawings by Claude Gellée Former collection of Baron de Beurnonville, his sale February 16-19, 1885, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, no. 366 Possibly former Raymond Koecklin (1860 - 1931) collection, according to an indication on the reverse of the mount Possibly former Georges Salles collection (1889 - 1966), as indicated on reverse of mount Our drawing, unknown to Marcel Roethlisberger, is one of a series of projects on the theme of "La chasse d'Enée" (Aeneas' Hunt) that Claude was working on in 1669. The episode depicted is taken from Virgil's Aeneid (VII, 483-499), one of Claude's main sources of inspiration at the end of his career. After Aeneas' arrival in Latium, his son Ascanius takes part in a hunt instigated by Juno, where he kills a stag, which is the pet of Silvia, daughter of the chief ranger of Latium, Tyrrheus. The animal was particularly appreciated by the Latins, who, to avenge the affront, declared war on Aeneas and the Trojans. It was as a result of this conflict that the victorious Aeneas was able to found the kingdom from which, according to legend, the Roman Empire was born. In 1669, Claude was working on a Hunting of Aeneas, whose surviving preparatory drawings bear closer resemblance to the canvas finally painted in 1682, Ascagne slaughtering Silvia's stag (1682, Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, WA1926.1) (M. Roethlisberger, Claude Lorrain, the Drawings, catalog, Berkeley/Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1968, p. 367, no. 989-992). Drawing 180 in the Liber Veritatis shows a group of figures on the left, with the central figure (Aeneas in the drawings, Ascanius in the future painting) aiming at one or more deer on the right of the composition, which they are preparing to shoot. Thirteen years later, the artist drew on these earlier drawings to compose his last painting, Ascagne's Hunt of 1682, a fact confirmed by the resemblance between the figures of Aeneas (Roethlisberger, no. 989) and Ascagne (Roethlisberger, no. 1128). However, the sheet we are presenting shares few similarities with the Ashmolean painting and the drawings for La chasse d'Énée, indicating that two radically different solutions were envisaged by the artist to illustrate the hunt for Iule. Our composition is in fact very close to two other known studies for this subject, also produced in 1669, now in the Berlin Kupferstichkabinett (KdZ 1475, Roethlisberger, no. 987) and formerly in the Wildenstein collection (Roethlisberger, no. 988). A few differences should be noted. In the Berlin drawing (no. 987), the scene is reversed, with the hunters on the left and the stag on the right, the same arrangement used for the Hunting of Aeneas and the 1682 painting. In the Wildenstein drawing ( Roethlisberger, no. 988), the composition is similar to our sheet, but the stag observes the hunters and the two full-length figures in the center are fully integrated into the drawing. This drawing may therefore be an intermediate state. Here, the artist is still searching for his motif. The first attempt would be that of Berlin (no. 987), whose general layout was retained for La Chasse d'Énée and thirteen years later for the painting, with major modifications. In our drawing, the re-use of the valet holding back the hounds, and the later addition of the central pair of figures, indicate that Claude had not yet stopped to think about this, and that this is the first attempt at a new composition. The last drawing (no. 988) takes up this composition and presents all the elements without interruption, marking the culmination of his plastic experiments. The repetition of the same episode in three drawings in the same year is therefore indicative of the fact that, as early as 1669, Claude was preparing to paint a composition on this theme. For these early thoughts, Claude chose not the dramatic moment when Iule is about to shoot the stag, but the one when the dogs catch the deer when it thinks it's out of danger, cooling off. In keeping with the fable, the scene is set in a bucolic setting, devoid of architectural elements. Claude's composition is based as much on the landscape as on the figures. The very tall figures and the high horizon shorten the perspective and con