1673
oil
canvas
From the collection of Art Institute of Chicago
View of Delphi with a Procession is a 1673 oil by Claude Lorrain, a Baroque work, held at Art Institute of Chicago.
This painting shows a serene scene of the ancient city of Delphi. The artist was drawn to the ruins of antiquity and imagined them restored to their former glory. He was influenced by the poetic vision of the ancient Roman writer Virgil, which is evident in the peaceful atmosphere of the painting. You can learn more about this style by looking at the work of artist Claude Lorrain.
This painting of the ancient city of Delphi (in what is now Greece) presents a delicate rendering of the glowing Mediterranean atmosphere. Like many other foreign artists drawn to the ruins of antiquity, French painter Claude Lorrain was fascinated with the ancient Roman Empire. Here, he evoked a serene, bucolic world akin to the poetic vision of the ancient Roman writer Virgil, depicting the ruins restored to their original glory as Claude imagined. This painting was commissioned by Cardinal Carlo Camillo Massimi, an important and erudite collector in Rome.
Commissioned along with Coast View with Perseus and the Origin of Coral (LV 184) by Cardinal Carlo Camillo Massimi (died 1676), Rome, 1673, presumably to accompany two other paired paintings by Claude, identified as Landscape with Argus Gaurding Io (LV 86) and Coast View with Apollo and the Cumaean Sibyl (LV 99) [according to inscriptions that accompany the drawing after the painting in Claude’s “Liber Veritatis” (LV 182) that read “CLAVDIO fecit IV / Roma 1673” and “quadro facto per leminmo e Reve.ro / sigre Cardinale Massimo / A Roma 1673”]; at his death to his younger brother, Fabio…
London, British Institution, Pictures by Italian, Spanish, Flemish, Dutch, French, and English Masters…, June 1854, no. 49. Nottingham, Midland Counties Art Museum, Pictures and Objects in the Midland Counties Art Museum, 1878, no. 91, as Landscape. New York, Wildenstein, Gods and Heroes: Baroque Images of Antiquity, October 30, 1968–January 4, 1969, no. 9, as Landscape with Sacrificial Procession. Paris, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, La Peinture française du XVIIe siècle dans les collections américaines, January 29–April 26, 1982, no. 62; traveled to New York, Metropolitan Museum of…
Read the full account in the museum source.
Claude Lorrain (French: ; born Claude Gellée , called le Lorrain in French; traditionally just Claude in English; c.
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