The vast landscape, with its towering rock formation at left and view of distant mountains at right, overshadows the reclining figure accompanied by sheep in the foreground. Roethlisberger described this sheet as a landscape with St. John, though it is hard to discern whether the reclining figure holds a staff with a cross. The composition is not connected to other known drawings or paintings and its combination of chalk and wash indicate it likely dates to the 1660s.
Inscribed on verso in an old hand and brown ink at upper center, "Lorenese"; at lower left corner in an irongall brown ink, "G".
Keppel, F., former owner.
Streep, Jon Nicholas, former owner.
Thaw, Eugene Victor, former owner.
Thaw, Clare, former owner.
Thaw Catalogue Raisonné, 2017, no. 244, repr.
Stampfle, Felice, and Cara D. Denison. Drawings from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Eugene V. Thaw. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1975, no. 21, repr.
Roethlisberger, Marcel. Claude Lorrain. The Drawings. 1968, no. 850a (fig. 1131k).