Claude Lorrain

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Claude Lorrain
1600-1682
Landscape with a Procession Crossing a Bridge
ca. 1650
Black chalk and graphite, and brown wash, on laid paper.
7 7/8 x 10 1/2 inches (200 x 266 mm)
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) in 1909.
III, 76

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Notes: 

A boisterous group wends its way through a wooded landscape-musicians playing trumpets lead the way, and the rear is brought up by a woman balancing a basket on her head in conversation with a companion. This band of celebrants traverses a stone bridge on its way to a temple in the distance. The subject of pilgrims proceeding to offer a sacrifice at the ancient Greek temple at Delphi was one the artist explored in an expansive landscape painting of 1645. In this drawing Claude focused exclusively on the motif, capturing the liveliness of a crowd that in the canvas would be idealized and subdued. -- Exhibition Label, From "Poussin, Claude, and French Drawing in the Classical Age"

Inscription: 

Inscribed on the verso in pen and brown ink, "IVR Claude Gelee".
Watermark: Six-pointed star.

Provenance: 
Sir Charles Greville (1763-1836), London (Lugt 549); George Guy (1818-1893), fourth Earl of Warwick, Warwick (Lugt 2600); his sale, London, Christie's, 20 May 1896, lot 74; Charles Fairfax Murray (1849-1919), London and Florence; from whom purchased through Galerie Alexandre Imbert, Rome, in 1909 by Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913), New York (no mark; see Lugt 1509); his son, J.P. Morgan, Jr. (1867-1943), New York.
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Associated names: 

Greville, Charles, 1762-1832, former owner.
Warwick, George Guy Greville, Earl of, 1818-1893, former owner.
Murray, Charles Fairfax, 1849-1919, former owner.
Morgan, J. Pierpont (John Pierpont), 1837-1913, former owner.

Bibliography: 

Collection J. Pierpont Morgan : Drawings by the Old Masters Formed by C. Fairfax Murray. London : Privately printed, 1905-1912, III, 76, repr.
Denison, Cara D., and Helen B. Mules, with the assistance of Jane V. Shoaf. European Drawings, 1375-1825. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1981, no. 53, repr.
Denison, Cara D. French Drawings, 1550-1825. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1984, no. 20.
Denison, Cara D. French Master Drawings in the Pierpont Morgan Library. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1993, no. 22, repr. in color.
From Leonardo to Pollock: Master drawings from the Morgan Library. New York: Morgan Library, 2006, cat. no. 73, p. 154-155.
Roethlisberger, Marcel, Claude Lorrain. The Drawings, 1968, no. 683b.

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