Claude Lorrain

Watermark: bird on three mounts in a circle.
TThis is one of Claude's largest and most finished figure drawings. It closely corresponds to the figures in a painting of 1658, commissioned by Prince Agostino Chigi, depicting a landscape with David at the Cave of Adullam (National Gallery, London). The close correspondence with the painting raises the question of whether Claude executed this as a preliminary study, or more likely, to record that work after the fact. The episode is recounted in the second Book of Samuel (23:13-17): three of David's mightiest warriors broke through enemy lines to fetch water that he particularly longed for from a well in Bethlehem. Upon their return, unable to bring himself to drink the water, since his men had risked their lives for it, David raises his arms in a gesture of refusal.
The album from which this sheet derives is traditionally considered to be from the collection of Queen Christina of Sweden (1629-89). At her death, Christina's drawings collection was inherited by Decio Azzolino (1623-89), who died two months after Christina. A group of drawings by Claude, now in the Teylers Museum, were then purchased by Don Livio Odescalchi. For works outside the Teylers Museum group, the provenance before Odescalchi cannot be confirmed and the first documented appearance of the album that contained the present sheet is in Odescalchi's 1713 inventory.