Coast View with the Embarkation of Carlo and Ubaldo
Medium
Etching
Dimensions
sheet: 13 9/16 x 17 13/16 in. (34.4 x 45.2 cm) sheet: 12 x 15 3/4 in. (30.5 x 40 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of George Hellman, 1942
Accession Number
42.65.116
Rights
Public Domain
Tags
Art Historical Context
This etching, titled *Coast View with the Embarkation of Carlo and Ubaldo*, captures a luminous seascape with figures preparing to depart by boat along a rocky shoreline. Created in 1744 by engravers Arthur Pond and Pierre Charles Canot after an original composition by Claude Lorrain (Claude Gellée), the print translates the French master’s celebrated ideal landscapes into a reproducible medium. Claude, active in the 17th century, was renowned for his atmospheric coastal scenes that blend natural light with classical or literary subjects, and this work draws from Torquato Tasso’s epic poem *Jerusalem Delivered*. The image reflects the enduring popularity of Claude’s style well into the 18th century, when collectors and artists sought prints to study his masterful handling of light and space. Etching allowed wider dissemination of such compositions, bringing refined views of nature and human drama to audiences beyond those who could view original paintings. Subtle gradations of tone evoke the gentle glow of dawn or dusk across the water, inviting viewers to linger on both the expansive landscape and the small group of men and women gathered near the vessels. Housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Department of Drawings and Prints, this sheet exemplifies how reproductive prints preserved and popularized Baroque landscape traditions. Its gift by George Hellman in 1942 underscores the continued appreciation for Claude’s poetic vision of nature as a stage for human stories.
About the Artist
Claude Lorrain (Claude Gellée)|Arthur Pond|Pierre Charles Canot · 1604–1682
Claude Gellée was born around 1600 in the village of Chamagne in the Duchy of Lorraine, from which he would take the professional name by which history knows him: Claude Lorrain. Orphaned young, he traveled south to Rome as a teenager, eventually finding his way into the Naples workshop of Goffredo Wals before apprenticing with the Roman landscapist and fresco painter Agostino Tassi around 1622. F...