Not currently on display at the V&A

Landscape with River and Castle

Oil Painting
1660-1665 (painted)
Artist/Maker

Gaspard Dughet (1615-1675) was born in Rome from a French father and an Italian mother. He first trained there with his brother-in-law, Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665), then made several trips in the peninsula during which he befriended other great painters of his generation such as Pietro da Cortona (1596-1669) and Guglielmo Cortese (1628-1679) but never left Italy. In 1657 Dughet was elected to the Accademia di S Luca and rapidly became one of the most distinguished landscape painters working in Rome in the 17th century, painting decorative frescoes and many easel paintings for such major Roman patrons as Pope Innocent X and the Colonna family.

This painting corresponds to a lost composition executed by Dughet in the period 1660-1665. It shows a shepherd and his dog in an Arcadian landscape, with houses in the middle distance. This type of landscapes was extremely popular in England in the late 17th and the whole 18th century following the taste for similar Arcadian compositions executed by Claude Lorrain (1604-1682) and Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665).


Object details

Category
Object type
TitleLandscape with River and Castle
Materials and techniques
Oil on canvas
Brief description
Oil painting, 'Landscape with River and Castle', After Gaspard Dughet, 1660-1665
Physical description
In a woody landscape, a shepherd and his dog in the foreground by a river, with houses in the middle distance and hills in the background.
Dimensions
  • Estimate height: 50cm
  • Estimate width: 64.8cm
Dimensions taken from C.M. Kauffmann, Catalogue of Foreign Paintings, I. Before 1800, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 1973
Style
Credit line
Bequeathed by John M. Parsons
Object history
Bequeathed by John M. Parsons, 1870
John Meeson Parsons (1798-1870), art collector, was born in Newport, Shropshire. He later settled in London, and became a member of the stock exchange. His interest in railways led to his election as an associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1839, and he was director or chairman of two railway companies between 1843 and 1848. Much of his time however was spent collecting pictures and works of art. In his will he offered his collection of mostly German and Dutch schools to the National Gallery (which selected only three works) and to the Department of Science and Art at South Kensington, later the Victoria and Albert Museum. The South Kensington Museum acquired ninety-two oil paintings and forty-seven watercolours. A number of engravings were also left to the British Museum.

Historical significance: A similar composition, slightly less refined (especially on the right hand side), appeared on the art market at a Christie's sale, London, 12 Oct. 1979, lot 15, as part of a series of four paintings, all whereabouts unknown. The identification of this painting as an authentic work by Dughet remains unclear and 580-1870 was not featured in Dughet's most recent catalogue raisonné (M. N. Boisclair, 1986).
The composition was engraved in reverse by the British artist Jean-Baptiste Chatelain in 1742 and inscribed with: Gaspar Poussin pinx.- Chatelain Sculp./ In the collection of Mr dahl./ Publish'd by Ar. Pond. Oct. 25th 1742./ 2 feet 1 Inch. ½ wide/ 1 foot 7 Inch.high.
[i.e. 48.3 x 64.8 cm] (Boisclair, Cat. 229). According to Chatelain, the original painting seems to have been 10 cm wider than the V&A painting, but differs also slightly from the dimensions given by M.N. Boisclair in her catalogue raisonné: 48.8 x 67.3 cm.
The mention of the Dahl collection could refer to the Swedish painter active in England Michael Dahl of whom his friend George Vertue said that his collection contained "many curious and valuable Italian paintings as well as religious and history paintings by Dahl himself". Dahl directed in his will that his collections should be auctioned after his death which happened in 1743 and the Dahl sale indeed took place in April 1753, that is 10 years after his death. Two landscapes by Gaspard Poussin are listed in this sale, lots 68 and 73 but in the absence of illustrations and descriptions of these paintings, it is difficult to assert the identity of these paintings.
This information however confirms that Dughet's original was already in England by 1742, which is not really surprising as after Claude Lorrain (1604-1682), the English market developed a taste for classical landscapes, sometimes even directly commissioned from England to Rome and shipped right after their execution. This means that the V&A picture is either a copy after a lost prototype by Dughet or Dughet's original version, the latter being less probable than the former.
Historical context
Although France and England became the new centres of landscape art in the 18th century, the Italian and Dutch traditions retained their authority. However the Arcadian vision of Italy increasingly tended towards a more precise observation of nature. Some of the most exciting developments took place in Venice, in the soft scenes of Francesco Zuccarelli (1702-1788), inspired by Claude Lorrain (1604-1682), and the fresh, spontaneous landscapes of Marco Ricci (1676-1730). Wealthy patrons, often accompanied by artists, on The Grand Tour, created a market for veduta and capriccio paintings, respectively topographical and fantasist landscape paintings. Landscape conventions were further enriched by foreign artists working in Italy, responding both to the beauty of Italian light and scenery celebrated by the Latin poets and vividly captured in the most popular landscapes of Claude Lorrain, Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) and Gaspard Dughet (1615-1675).
Subjects depicted
Summary
Gaspard Dughet (1615-1675) was born in Rome from a French father and an Italian mother. He first trained there with his brother-in-law, Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665), then made several trips in the peninsula during which he befriended other great painters of his generation such as Pietro da Cortona (1596-1669) and Guglielmo Cortese (1628-1679) but never left Italy. In 1657 Dughet was elected to the Accademia di S Luca and rapidly became one of the most distinguished landscape painters working in Rome in the 17th century, painting decorative frescoes and many easel paintings for such major Roman patrons as Pope Innocent X and the Colonna family.

This painting corresponds to a lost composition executed by Dughet in the period 1660-1665. It shows a shepherd and his dog in an Arcadian landscape, with houses in the middle distance. This type of landscapes was extremely popular in England in the late 17th and the whole 18th century following the taste for similar Arcadian compositions executed by Claude Lorrain (1604-1682) and Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665).
Bibliographic references
  • C.M. Kauffmann, Catalogue of Foreign Paintings, I. Before 1800, London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1973, p. 91, cat. no. 91
  • Boisclair, Marie-Nicole, Gaspard Dughet: sa vie, son oeuvre (1615-1675), foreword by Jacques Thuillier, Paris, 1986, cat. 229 and G14.
Collection
Accession number
580-1870

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Record createdFebruary 12, 2007
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