View of Delphi with a Procession

1673

Claude Gellée, called Claude Lorrain
French, 1600-1682

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.

Status: On View, Gallery 209
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Claude Lorrain
Title: View of Delphi with a Procession
Place: France (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1673
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: CLAUDIO [...] (lower right, barely legible)
Dimensions: 101.6 × 127 cm (40 × 50 in.)
Credit Line: Robert A. Waller Memorial Fund
Reference Number: 1941.1020
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/43145/manifest.json

John Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters…, vol. 8 (London, 1837), p. 293, under no. 178, p. 295, no. 182.
Owen J. Dullea, Claude Gellée le Lorrain (New York, 1887), p. 81.
Tancred Borenius, “A Liber Veritatis Claude,” Burlington Magazine 77 (1940), p. 195, frontispiece ill.
“In the Auction Rooms,” Connoisseur 106, 470 (1940), p. 176.
“Sale Notes,” Apollo 32 (1940), p. 108.
Art Institute of Chicago, Report of the Year 1941, Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 36, 4 (1942), pp. 11, 177, ill.
Anthony Blunt, The French Drawings in the Collection of His Majesty the King at Windsor Castle (Oxford and London, 1945), p. 22, under no. 47.
Marcel Röthlisberger, “Les Pendants dans L’oeuvre de Claude Lorrain,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 6th ser., 51 (1958), p. 225.
Marcel Röthlisberger, “Les Pendants dans l’oeuvre de Claude Lorrain,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 6th ser., 55 (1960), p. 221.
Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in the Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Chicago, 1961), pp. 172, 230, ill.
Francis Haskell, Patrons and Painters: A Study in the Relations between Italian Art and Society in the Age of the Baroque (London, 1963), p. 118, pl. 19b.
Margaretta Salinger, French Painting: The Seventeenth Century (New York, 1965), p. 48, no. 24.
Marcel Röthlisberger, “Claude’s ‘View of Delphi’,” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 1 (1966), pp. 85–95, fig. 1.
Linda Lee Boyer, “The Origin of Coral by Claude Lorrain,” Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 26 (1968), p. 372.
Marcel Röthlisberger, Claude Lorrain: The Drawings, vol. 1 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1968), pp. 389–90, under nos. 1057–59.
I[an] G. Kennedy, “Claude and Architecture,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 35 (1972), pp. 265–66, pl. 42b, detail ill.
Marcel Röthlisberger and Doretta Cecchi, L’opera completa di Claude Lorrain, Classici dell’arte 83 (Milan, 1975), pp. 121–22, no. 258, ill; French translation (Paris, 1977).
Denis Coekelberghs, Les Peintres belges à Rome de 1700 à 1830 (Brussels and Rome, 1976), pp. 110–11, fig. 83bis.
Jean Devaux, Les Trésors de l’art classique (Geneva, 1978), p. 175, pl. XXVII B (reversed).
Michael Kitson, Claude Lorrain: Liber Veritatis (London, 1978), p. 166, under no. 182.
Art Institute of Chicago, 100 Masterpieces, 1978, pl. 26 (in reverse); ed., 1983, pl. 26
John D. Morse, Old Master Paintings in North America (New York, 1979), p. 52.
Marcel Röthlisberger, Claude Lorrain: The Paintings, vol. 1 (New York, 1979), vol. 1, pp. 20, 240–41, under LV 86, pp. 428–31, LV 182, p. 434, under LV 184; vol. 2, fig. 296.
J. V. Hantz, “La peinture française du XVIIe siècle dans les collections américaines,” L’Amateur d’Art 680 (1982), p. 20.
Nicole Lamothe, “Les Caravagesques français,” L’Amateur d’Art 680 (1982), p. 15, ill.
Günter Metken, “Zurüch zum Ursprung,” Stuttgarter Zeitung (February 17, 1982), p. 29.
Claude Lesné, “La peinture française du XVIIe siècle dans les collections américaines,” Le Petit Journal des grandes Expositions 116 (1982), n. pag.
Ekkehard Mai, “Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais Ausstellung: La peintre française du XVIIe siècle dans les collections américaines,” Pantheon 40 (1982), p. 153.
Pierre Rosenberg and Marc Fumaroli, “La mostra del mese: L’arte s’impara a Roma,” Bolaffiarte 12, 116 (1982), p. 24.
H. Diane Russell, Claude Lorrain, 1600–1682, exh. cat. (National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., 1982–83), pp. 63; 162, 166, under no. P39; pp. 188–89, no. P50; p. 285, under no. D68; p. 286, under no. D69; p. 294, under no. D73; p. 459, ill.
Art Institute of Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago: 100 Masterpieces (Chicago, 1978), p. 64, no. 26, ill.
Marcel Röthlisberger, Im Licht von Claude Lorrain: Landschaftsmalerei aus drei Jahrhunderten, exh. cat. (Haus der Kunst, Munich, 1983), p. 140, under no. 78, pp. 224–25, under no. 149, p. 258, under no. 178, p. 287.
Marcel Röthlisberger, “Claude Lorrain: Some New Perspectives,” in Claude Lorrain, 1600–1682: A Symposium, Studies in the History of Art, 14 (Washington, D.C., 1984), p. 48.
Marcel Röthlisberger, “A Panoramic View by Claude Lorrain,” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 11, 2 (1985), p. 114 n. 6.
Christopher Wright, The French Painters of the Seventeenth Century (London, 1985), p. 160.
Marcel Röthlisberger, “Claude Lorrain: Nouveaux dessins, tableaux, et lettres,” Bulletin de la Société de l’histoire de l’art français, année 1986 (1988), p. 50.
Marc Sandoz, “Essai sur le paysage de montagne dans la peinture française du XVIIe siècle,” in Cahiers du paysage de montagne et de quelques sujets relatifs à la montagne, vol. 1 (Paris: 1987), p. 50, fig. 67.
Carlo del Bravo, “Letture di Poussin e Claude,” Artibus et Historiae 18 (1988), p. 162, 167 n. 124.
Jane Roberts, A Study in Genius: Master Drawings and Watercolours from the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen in the Royal Library, Windsor Castle, exh. cat. (Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 1988), p. 92, under no. 40.
Helen Langdon, Claude Lorrain (Oxford, 1989), pp. 142, 144, fig. 110.
Colin Eisler, Paintings in the Hermitage (New York, 1990), p. 36.
Margaretha Rossholm Lagerlöf, Ideal Landscape: Annibale Carracci, Nicolas Poussin, and Claude Lorrain (New Haven and London, 1990), pp. 91–92, fig. 71.
Marcel Röthlisberger, “More Drawings by Claude Lorrain,” Master Drawings 28, 4 (1990), p. 424 n. 25.
Christopher Wright, The World’s Master Paintings From the Early Renaissance to the Present Day (London and New York, 1992), vol. 1, p. 234; vol. 2, pp. 62, 562.
John W. Smith, “The Nervous Profession: Daniel Catton Rich and the Art Institute of Chicago, 1927–1958,” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 19, 1 (1993), pp. 68–70, fig. 14.
Humphrey Wine, Claude: The Poetic Landscape, exh. cat. (The National Gallery, London, 1994), p. 92, under no. 47.
André Chastel, L’Art français: Ancien régime, 1620–1775, vol. 3 (Paris, 1995), pp. 152–53, ill.
Rosemary Maclean, “‘O Gran Principe, O Gran Prelato’: Claude’s Roman Patrons and the Appeal of His Landscape Easel Paintings,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 6th ser., 126 (1995), pp. 228, 230, 233 nn. 23, 26, fig. 6.
Susan Wise, in Susan Wise and Malcolm Warner, French and British Paintings from 1600 to 1800 in The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, 1996), pp. 29–35, ill.
Chloe Chard and Helen Langdon, eds., Transports: Travel, Pleasure, and Imaginative Geography, 1600-1830, Studies in British Art 3 (New Haven and London, 1996), pp. 173–4, fig. 64.
Werner Schade, ed., Claude Lorrain: Paintings and Drawings (Munich, 1998), pl. 77.
Maria Lucrezia Vicini, Il Collezionismo del Cardinale Fabrizio Spada in Palazzo Spada (Rome, 2006), p. 114, under no. 40.
Claire Pace, “‘Numi de’ poeti, e della music’: Claude Lorrain’s Minerva Visiting the Muses,” Artibus et Historiae 29, 57 (2008), pp. 140, 142, 145 n. 32, 148 ns. 89–90, fig. 47.

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 Art, May 26–August 22, 1982; Art Institute of Chicago, September 18–November 28, 1982.
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, Claude Lorrain, 1600–1682, October 17, 1982–January 2, 1983, no. P50; traveled to Paris, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, February 15–May 16, 1983.
Tokyo, National Museum of Western Art, Itaria no hikari: Kurōdo Roran to risō fūkei [Claude Lorrain and the Ideal Landscape], September 15–December 6, 1998, no. 59.

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 Camillo Massimi [according to Röthlisberger 1979, vol. 1, p. 240, under LV 86]. Possibly John Drummond, first earl of Melfort, London, by 1690; possibly sold Whitehall, London, June 21, 1693 [suggested by Röthlisberger 1979, vol. 1, pp. 239–41, under LV 86, pp. 428–31, LV 182 on the basis that one of the pendants of the painting, Landscape with Argus Guarding Io, Holkham Hall, Norfolk, may be listed in an 1693 supplement to an 1692 inventory of the Melfort collection]. Humphrey Edwin, by 1746; probably sold by his widow, c. 1750 [according to Röthlisberger 1979, vol. 1, p. 430, under LV 182]. In the possession of the Earls of Derby, certainly by 1854 when it was lent to London 1854; by descent to Edward George Villiers, seventeenth earl of Derby; sold Christie’s London, July 26, 1940, no. 9, to Rothschild for £126, as Priests Proceeding with a Sacrificial Bull towards a Fortified City [price and buyer according to an annotated copy of the sale catalogue, Christie’s, London]. Arnold Seligmann, Rey, and Co., New York, by 1941; purchased by the Art Institute, 1941.

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