Joachim van Sandrart, who often accompanied Claude on long days drawing from nature, remarked that his friend "tried by every means to penetrate nature, lying in the fields before the break of the day and until night." This naturalistic landscape was at least partly executed while Claude explored the area around Tivoli. It was included in the artist's so-called Tivoli Album, a grouping of thirty-two horizontal landscape drawings of exceptional quality, produced in and around Tivoli in1639-1641.
With stark hills and barren trees, it is a striking contrast to his idealized landscapes. Yet it is signed on the verso with an inscription that can be interpreted as Claude Roma in Urbe ("Claude in the city of Rome"). For all the drawing's observation of nature, the artist seems to have finished the work in his Roman studio.
Inscribed in pen and brown ink, at lower right of the recto, "13", deleted; lower verso, in red chalk, "CLAV/R.IV".
Watermark: Fleur-de-lis in a circle, surmounted by small crown.
Murray, Charles Fairfax, 1849-1919, former owner.
Morgan, J. Pierpont (John Pierpont), 1837-1913, former owner.
Denison, Cara D. French Master Drawings in the Pierpont Morgan Library. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1993, no. 20, repr.
100 Master drawings from the Morgan Library & Museum. München : Hirmer, 2008, no. 72, repr. [Kurt Zeitler]
Roethlisberger, Marcel. Claude Lorrain. The Drawings, 1968, no. 439.