An export bar has been placed on Claude Lorrain’s Landscape with Rural Dance to allow time for a UK buyer to be found.
Painted in Rome by Claude Lorrain, the seventeenth-century image depicts shepherds making music whilst tending to their flocks. It is thought to be nearly four hundred years old, having been painted around 1640, News Cover reports, citing UK government.
Renowned as one of Claude Lorrain’s masterpieces, the scene draws on popular poetic themes of an idealised location removed from urban life, populated by shepherds and other rural figures. Measuring 118 x 148.5 cm, the painting was one of the artist’s largest works at the time of completion.
Thanks to its scale, grandeur, handling and quality, this work is considered to be one of the most ambitious pieces created by Claude Lorrain. The artist is well known for his ability to depict natural light on water, particularly from the morning or evening sun, with this painting being a prime example of the use of golden light over a coastal landscape.
Claude Lorrain, known after his birthplace in the Duchy of Lorraine, was born the son of a peasant. He travelled and studied in Germany and Italy, before settling in Rome where he completed Landscape with Rural Dance. The mastery demonstrated in his depiction of natural beauty has led to a valuation of £9,000,000.
