Claude Gellée, called Claude Lorrain, A Mediterranean port at sunset, c. 1630

1630

Medium

Oil on canvas

Dimensions

75.3 × 99.5 cm

Status

In Gallery Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-149610

This serene view is amongst the earliest of Claude’s celebrated harbour scenes, whose shimmering seas beneath skies tinged with the glow of a sunrise or sunset inspired John Constable to enthuse ‘Although Claude was a painter of fairyland, and sylvan scenery of the most romantic kind, he is nowhere seen to greater advantage than in his sea ports’ (Constable, Lecture II, The Establishment of Landscape, delivered at the Royal Institution, London, 1834). Its rediscovery in 2015, having been lost to scholarship after disappearing into a South American collection, adds considerably to our knowledge of Claude’s early career, and to the history of Continental and English taste.