The subject of this painting is Genesis 29, the story of Jacob and the daughters of Laban, Rachel and Leah. Jacob wishes to marry the younger and more beautiful Rachel, but this act would have been contrary to custom. In the end, he marries both Rachel and Leah. In return for the daughters, Jacob faithfully tends to Laban's flocks of sheep and goats for fourteen years.
Claude arranged this drama against sweeping, panoramic views arranged in carefully organized horizontal planes. Vertical accents are provided by the trees and architecture. The artist reached beyond the visual world to combine the motifs best suited to make his artistic statement. It exemplifies his mature work where the accent on beauty, harmony and order form the fundamentals of the ideal landscape.
Details
- Artist Name: Claude (Claude Gellée) Lorrain (French, 1600-1682)
- Title: Landscape with Jacob and Laban and His Daughters
- Date: 1659
- Medium: Oil on copper
- Dimensions: 10-1/2 x 13-7/8 in. (26.7 x 35.2 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Art Foundation
- Accession Number: M.1976.01.P
- Copyright: © Norton Simon Art Foundation
Object Information
De Lahante, London.
Nieuwenhuys, sold 1830 to;
Edward Gray (d. 1838), Harringay House, Hornsey.
Prince Charles de Beauvau.
Sir Thomas Barring, bought, through Mr. Chaplin, 1848.
Earl of Northbrook, 1866;
Baron Northbrook.
[Colnaghi, London, 1929/30].
Archibald James.
Clive Cookson;
Gerald Cookson, Hexham, Scotland.
[Edward Speelman, Ltd., London/Art Gallery A.G., Zurich; sold 17 February 1976 to];
Norton Simon Art Foundation.
[on loan]
- Phoenix, Phoenix Art Museum, 1976-01-29 to
A Revolution of the Palette: The First Synthetic Blues and their Impact on French Artists
- Norton Simon Museum, 2015-07-17 to 2016-01-04
Reinstallation of Galleries: Art History of the 17th and 18th Century Gains Fresh Dimension
- Norton Simon Museum, 1993-09-02 to 1995-08-13
- Roethlisberger, M., The Connoisseur, pp. 57-63
- Roethlisberger, M., Apollo, p. 209-214
- Waagen, G. F., Treasures of Art in Great Britian, 1854, p. 177
- Roethlisberger, M., Claude Lorrain, The Paintings, 1961, vol. II, fig. 244 pp. 348-349
- Roethlisberger, M., Claude Lorrain, The Drawings, 1968, no. 826
- Kitson, M., Claude Lorrain: Liber Veritaits, 1978, p. 144
- Rosenberg, Pierre, France in the Golden Age: Seventeenth Century French Paintings in American Collections, 1982, no. 2
- Wright, Christopher, The French Painters of the Seventeenth Century, 1985, p. 164
- Masterpieces from the Norton Simon Museum, 1989, p. 63
- Campbell, Sara, Collector Without Walls: Norton Simon and His Hunt for the Best, 2010, cat. 1295 p. 391
- Carnegie Museum of Art, Northbrook Provenance, 2018,
- Anthony Speelman, A Tale of Two Monkeys – Adventures in the Art World, 2022, fig. 49 pp. 126-131, p. 131 (ill.)
Additional Artwork by Artist
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