Departure for the Fields
ca. 1638–41
Medium
Etching; third state of four (Mannocci)
Dimensions
sheet: 5 3/16 x 7 3/16 in. (13.1 x 18.2 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929
Accession Number
29.107.44
Tags
Art Historical Context
Claude Lorrain, born Claude Gellée (160–1682), was a pioneering French Baroque artist who spent most of his career in Rome, revolutionizing landscape painting with his luminous, idealized visions of the classical past. *Departure for the Fields* (ca. 1638–41) is a fine example of his etching prowess, in the third state four as cataloged by Mannocci. just 5 3/16 x 7 3/16 inches, this intimate print captures the poetic tranquility of rural life, blending human figures, animals, bridges and trees into a harmonious pastoral scene. Lorrain's etchings, like this one, demonstrate his mastery of line...
About the Artist
Claude Lorrain (Claude Gellée) · 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...