Oil Painting, 'Pastoral Landscape', style of Claude Lorrain, 18th century

A densely wooded pastoral landscape. In the foreground, a woman rests on a rock beside her basket listening to a young goatherd playing the flute while cattle and goats graze around them. Another figure tending his herd is just discernable outside the remains of a fortified town on a hill in the background.

Bequeathed by Rev. Chauncy Hare Townshend

Bequeathed by Rev. Chauncy Hare Townshend, 1868. Originally considered the work of Claude, no doubt encouraged by the signature (in fact added at a later date), this attribution was abandoned in the early 20th century. The painting is probably a work of the 18th century, possibly Netherlandish, but, although it is clearly in the manner of Claude's pastoral landscapes, it is not a copy of any known composition.

Historical significance: While this work was believed to be by Claude when it was bequeathed to the Museum, by 1961 it was recognised as a later imitation. The work appears to be a pastiche of different motifs taken from the drawn, painted and engraved oeuvre of the French artist Claude Lorrain (1604/5-1682), the great landscape painter who worked extensively in Italy. The crumbling fortifications on the hills in the background appear for example in many of Claude's works and the tower-like structure features in a drawing (now in the British Museum, inv. 0o,7.230) from his Roman Campagna book which he seems to have reused in several of his upright views. Shepherds, shepherdesses, music makers, cattle and goats appear throughout Claude's landscapes and are often similarly depicted in a warm glowing light. The handling of the figures and foliage in 1345-1869 however is much more cursory than in Claude's more delicate and luminous works.

This is a Pastoral, a genre of painting representing the idealized life of shepherds who sing, make love, and graze their flocks in an beautiful landscape; such works represent the courtier's or city-dweller's dream of escape, and suggests longing for a past Golden Age or a remote Arcadia. The genre was developed in 17th-century Rome, particularly by Claude Lorrain, whose pastorals, set in the Roman Campagna, convey an enchanted mood, and Arcadian themes became popular in 17th-century Holland, where there was a vogue for three-quarter-length paintings of shepherds and shepherdesses. Italianate landscapes were particularly praised during the 17th century up to the early 19th century. The term conventionally refers to the school of Dutch painters and draughtsmen who were active in Rome for more than a hundred years, starting from the early 17th century. These artists produced mainly pastoral subjects bathed in warm southern light, set in an Italian, or specifically Roman, landscape. The term is also often applied, incorrectly, to artists who never left the northern Netherlands but who worked primarily in an Italianate style. Eighteenth-century collectors, especially French ones, preferred a view by Berchem or Both to a scene of the Dutch country side by Jacob van Ruisdael for instance. The taste for the Italianates continued undiminished into the 19th century. An early voice denouncing these artists was that of John Constable in 1836 and at the end of the century Italianates had lost favour partly because of the rise of Impressionism and the appreciation of the Dutch national school of landscape expounded by such eminent critics as Wilhem von Bode, E.W. Moes and Cornelis Hofstede de Groot.

Probably a work of the 18th century, possibly Netherlandish, in the manner of Claude's pastoral landscapes; it is not copied from any known composition.

A densely wooded pastoral landscape. In the foreground, a woman rests on a rock beside her basket listening to a young goatherd playing the flute while cattle and goats graze around them. Another figure tending his herd is just discernable outside the remains of a fortified town on a hill in the background. When it was given to the Museum, this landscape was thought to be the work of Claude Lorrain but the signature and date inscribed on a rock are now recognised as later additions. Claude, the first great landscape painter, was highly esteemed in the 19th century and admired by British artists such as Turner and Constable. This painting is probably an 18th-century Netherlandish work, in the manner of Claude's pastoral landscapes. Rather than a copy of any specific composition, 1345-1869 appears to be a pastiche of different motifs characteristic of Claude. The crumbling fortifications on the hills in the background appear for example in many of Claude's works, and the tower-like structure features in a drawing (now in the British Museum, inv. 0o,7.230) from his Roman Campagna book which he seems to have reused in several of his upright views.

1345-1869