Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00011553David and Goliath (verso)
About the Artwork
This drawing represents a view of the famous Acqua Acetosa, a mineral spring that until the 19th century provided the favored drinking water of Romans who believed in its healing powers. Although topographically accurate, the sheet is not a plein-air study but a vision of an imagined Arcadian world carefully rendered by Gellée, one of the most original painters of the 17th century. The French-born artist spent his career painting and drawing the Roman Campagna and the Neopolitan coastline. Sublimely beautiful pen-and-ink and wash drawings such as the example here reveal the artist's highly poetic response to the natural world and his unparalleled sensitivity to light.
Inscriptions
verso, lower left, in brown ink: beau peisage de claude Le Lorrain; lower left, in graphite: David; lower right, in graphite: Golia; upper center, in graphite: No 2599; lower center, in graphite: Claude Lorraine / From the Collection of / Lord Brownlow (The Belton / House Collection) / Signed Claudio Gellée.; lower left, in red watercolor: 55
Provenance
Sir Joshua Reynolds(?); Sir Abraham Hume; by descent to Lord Alford; by descent to the Earls of Brownlow; [sale, Sotheby's, London, 14 July 1926, lot 43]; Mr. and Mrs. Edward Belden Greene, Cleveland.
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Claude Lorrain (French, 1604–1682)
- Date
- c. 1645
- Medium
- black chalk
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 26 x 40.5 cm (10 1/4 x 15 15/16 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Edward B. Greene
- Accession no.
- 1928.15.b
More by Claude Lorrain in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00011553
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