Artist: Claude Lorrain (1600 - 1682) was a French painter, draughtsman, and etcher of the Baroque era. He spent most of his life in Italy and is one of the earliest influential artists, apart from his contemporaries in Dutch Golden Age painting, to concentrate on landscape painting.
Title: Etude d'une Scene de Brigandos. Small study for a scene involving two brigands attacking a traveler, and (originally) four drypoint sketches representing animals (cropped). c.1633. This sketch, made on the back of a plate, is a study for a landscape with brigands (c.1633).
Dimensions: 1" x 2 1/2"
Publisher: John McCreery, English publisher and printer (1768-1832).
Edition: A Collection of Original Etchings. Published by McCreery. London, 1816. The original copper plates were believed to have been destroyed after this publication.
Date: 1633 (plate).
Materials and Techniques: etching and drypoint on a thin lightweight paper cropped from the impression and pasted onto the backing sheet at four corners.
Mat and Frame: backing sheet.
Provenance: The Estate of George "Yorgo" Demetrakopoulos; professor, assistant director of the Medieval Institute, and assistant to the dean at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan, from 1965-2000.
Condition: Cropped from the print, a fold. A close tear to the u.r. corner. The signs of aging are appropriate for the time. A detailed condition report is available on demand.
Museums and Libraries: The British Museum "Small study for a scene involving two brigands attacking a traveler" 1856,0308.1350. The Metropolitan Museum of Art "Study with Brigands (Lower Section)"
22.73.5.
Art Movements, Periods & Schools: French School XVII C. British School XIX C.
Note: This entry incorporates text from Wikipedia and the catalog entry of a similar item from the British Museum collection.
- The sketch was published twice: as a part of the plate "Small study for a scene involving two brigands attacking a traveler, and four drypoint sketches representing animals" and as a remarque to the "Le Bouvier (the cow-herd)", executed in 1636. The British Museum M,12.23.
- There is another, bigger, print by Claude on the same subject "Landscape with two brigands." The British Museum 1840,0808.29.