Classical Landscape

Jean-Baptiste-Claude Chatelain

1730–58 · Graphite, pen and gray ink, brush and blue, brown and gray wash · Drawings and Prints

One of the finest imaginative draftsmen working in London in the mid-eighteenth century, Chatelain was also a skilled etcher. This classically composed landscape is executed mostly in ink and brown wash, with blue touches applied to the water and a distant hill. A central river leads the eye to a distant bay, framed by a large large tree at right and a series of steep receding cliffs at left. The artist's admiration for the French landscape painter Claude is evident, and it is not surprising that Chatelain worked with Francis Vivares to produce one of the first prints after Claude to be published in England ("A Dance Under the Trees", or "Landscape with Rural Dance," 1743).

Artist

Jean-Baptiste-Claude Chatelain

Date

1730–58

Medium

Graphite, pen and gray ink, brush and blue, brown and gray wash

Department

Drawings and Prints

Credit line

Purchase, Brooke Russell Astor Bequest, 2013