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Seaport with the Embarkation of Saint Ursula:
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About the catalogue

Full title
Seaport with the Embarkation of Saint Ursula
Artist
Claude
Inventory number
NG30
Author
Humphrey Wine
Extracted from
The Seventeenth Century French Paintings (London, 2001)

Claude (Claude Lorrain) 1604/5?–1682
NG 30 
Seaport with the Embarkation of Saint Ursula

Humphrey Wine, 2001

Extracted from:
Humphrey Wine, The Seventeenth Century French Paintings (London: National Gallery Company and Yale University Press, 2001).

© The National Gallery, London

Oil on canvas, 112.9 × 149.0 cm

Signed and dated on one of the steps towards the bottom left: CLAVDIO. I.V.F. ROMAE 1641

Provenance

Painted for Fausto Poli (1581–1652), when he was Pope Urban VIII’s major domo and administrator of the Barberini possessions;1 bequeathed by Poli to Cardinal Francesco Barberini (1597–1679), nephew of Urban VIII;2 inherited by Cardinal Carlo Barberini (1630–1706) and recorded at some date during the years 1692–1704 in the ground‐floor apartment of the Palazzo Barberini alle Quattro Fontane;3 recorded in the posthumous inventory of Cardinal Francesco Barberini (1662–1738);4 bought by William Lock (1732–1810) from the Palazzo Barberini5 some time in or after 1751 and probably by 1774;6 sold by Lock to Gerard Levinge van Heythusen in 1781;7 sold by van Heythusen to the French picture dealer resident in London, Noel Joseph Desenfans (1745–1807), for 2500 guineas;8 sold by Desenfans to Thomas Moore Slade, picture dealer, for £1200 after July 1786;9 in the gallery at Slade’s home at Rochester before being removed to Slade’s house in London;10 bought from Ward by John Julius Angerstein for £2500 and in his collection by 19 November 1802;11 purchased with other paintings in the Angerstein collection from his executors in 1824.

Exhibitions

London, April 1786, 125 Pall Mall (420);12 London, June 1786, 125 Pall Mall (244);13 London 1806, BI (lent for copying);14 London, August 1943, National Gallery Picture of the Month (temporarily removed from wartime store at Manod, Wales);15 London 1982, NG , Watch this Space (no catalogue); Amsterdam 1991, Rijksmuseum, Meeting of Masterpieces: Jan Both – Claude Lorrain; Copenhagen 1992 (10); London 1994, NG , Claude. The Poetic Landscape (15); London 1996–7, NG , John Julius Angerstein (no catalogue).

Related Works (for the pendant16 see text)

Paintings
  • (1) Anon. sale, London, Stewart, 2 May 1812 (lot 77, ‘The Embarkation of St. Ursula, painted with fine effect, and variety of Ships, Vessels, and Figures, judiciously introduced, a truly capital picture, from the Prince of Conti’s Collection, and purchased by Mr. Dens Enfan’s for the late King of Poland’, bought in at £410).17 No painting in the Conti sale of 8ff. April 1777 corresponds to such a description. Evidently not the copy after Claude’s Embarkation of Saint Paula now at Dulwich (no. 220), which was part of the Bourgeois bequest of 1811 and is the only seascape by Claude included in Desenfans’s 1801 catalogue. Possibly a different subject to NG 30, which had indeed gone through Desenfans’s hands (see Provenance);
  • (2) Copy by Douglas Guest (1781–after 1828), sold by Alexander Davison, prize‐agent and friend of Admiral Lord Nelson and government contractor,18 London, Stanley’s, 28 June 1823 (lot 16);
  • (3) Sale of Lord Northwick deceased, Thirlestane House, Cheltenham, Phillips, 23 August 1859 (lot 1656, £47 5s.) to Prior (as ‘Claude (after). The Embarcation of St Ursula’);19
  • (4) A similar composition to NG 30, but not illustrating the story of Saint Ursula, in the manner of Claude. Oil on canvas, 116.8 × 145.4 cm. Formerly the property of The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass. Sold New York, Christie’s, 10 October 1990 (lot 177, $16,500 inc. premium);20
  • (5) A nineteenth‐century copy. Oil on canvas, 108 × 147 cm, sold Copenhagen, Brun Rasmussen, 6 February 1991 (lot 112, 21,500 kr.);
  • (6) Anon. Sale, Bonhams, Chelsea, 5 October 1999 (lot 262, sold as ‘20th century, After Claude, £180 ’ ), oil on metal, 49 × 60 cm. A copy;
  • (7) A version of the subject attributed to Claude by Waagen and seen by him in the Earl of Normanton’s collection at Somerley, near Ringwood, Hants, was evidently a different composition.21
Drawings (by Claude)
  • (1) London British Museum, inv. no. 60, LV 54 ( MRD 458).22 Inscribed on the verso: quadro faict pour lemno / Cardinale poli / si ritrova nel (‘nel’ crossed out) / dal lemimo Cardinale / Barberino; and on another occasion: Claudio fecit / in. V.R.;
  • (2) New York, private collection. A preparatory compositional drawing probably connected with NG 30;23
  • (3) London, British Museum, inv. no. 0o.6‐97 ( MRD 455). A preparatory compositional drawing possibly connected with NG 30.24
  • (4) London, British Museum, inv. no. 204, LV 198 ( MRD 457). A study for NG 30, rather than a record of an independent composition as once assumed;25
  • (5) London, British Museum, inv. no. 1866.7.14.60 ( MRD 459). A study for the figures in NG 30, although it has recently been suggested that the drawing may have been copied from the painting;26
  • (6) Private collection ( MRD 454). (See p. 119, fig. 3). In some respects resembling NG 30, but not necessarily preparatory to it, or to it alone;
  • (7) London, Witt Collection, inv. no. 1,859 ( MRD 456). Possibly a study developed from MRD 454 itself not necessarily connected with NG 30 (see p. 119, fig. 3);27
  • (8) Rome, Rospigliosi collection, inv. no. 53. Signed and dated Claud … 665 ( MRD 944, and see A. Negro, La Collezione Rospigliosi: La quadreria e la committenza artistica di una famiglia patrizia a Roma nel sei e settecento, Rome 1999, p. 228). A repetition of LV 54 with modifications, preparatory for Barrière’s etching (see Prints (1)).
Prints
Tapestry

Boston, Mass., Museum of Fine Arts (inv. no. 1976.735) 419 × 470 cm, inscribed at top: DE ST VRSVL DE CAEN, and at bottom: FAICT PAR MOI. PIERRE. DVMON (fig.1). Datable c. 1654–6, probably designed by La Champagne La Faye, woven by Pierre Dumon probably in Caen. Perhaps loosely based on the composition of NG 30.30

Technical Notes

In very good condition, albeit with some disfiguring drying cracks to the figure wearing a blue jacket at bottom left, and repaired in an area to the left and above Saint Ursula following malicious damage in 1917. There is also some blanching in the foliage, probably caused by the breaking up of a layer of oil medium perhaps applied during an old restoration.31 The primary support is a twill canvas lined with a medium‐weight plain‐weave linen applied following the damage in 1917. The painting had already been lined at some date before 1853, [page 97]according to Gallery conservation records. At that date in evidence to the Select Committee on the National Gallery Sir Charles Eastlake stated: ‘I think I can trace in [NG 30] evidence of a former unequal cleaning; the discoloured varnish seems to have accumulated in the horizon, and the upper part of the picture appears to have been more cleaned at some former period than the rest; but the effect is generally very agreeable, except in the columns of the portico, which look a little cold, even now; but, if I am correct, it is proof that time does bring pictures into harmony, even after they have been unequally cleaned.’32 The stretcher probably dates from about 1800 and is marked 19 in black ink (?) at the top. NG 30 was last cleaned and retouched in 1990.

NG 30 is further inscribed G(?)209 on a bale of goods and 1403(?) on another. The inscription EMBARQE… ORS noted in Davies 1957 as almost effaced, and doubted by him, has now disappeared. There are pentimenti to the alignment of both legs of the standing male figure wearing a blue jacket at bottom left. There are numerous fingerprints (presumably Claude’s) in the surface of the paint in the sky.33

An infra‐red photograph shows that the two flags at topmost right were originally horizontally striped. The X‐ray photograph (fig. 2) taken before the last restoration shows that Claude made some alterations to the composition: the return wall of the loggia to the right of the martyrium did not originally project beyond the columns of the latter; the alignment of the punt at bottom left may have been altered; in the centre foreground there was once a triangular projecting slab of stone; at bottom right the alignment of the sailing boat was slightly altered and there appears to have been a change to the position of the legs of the figure disembarking from it.

Fig. 2

X‐radiograph. © The National Gallery, London

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Fig. 3

Detail of ship’s flag showing the Barberini arms. © The National Gallery, London

Discussion

The subject is from the popular Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine ( c. 1230–98).34 As there told, Ursula was the daughter of the Christian and British king Notus. To delay her marriage to the pagan king of Anglia she stipulated that she and ten virgin companions, each accompanied by a thousand virgins, should make a three‐year journey to Rome while her betrothed was instructed in Christianity. This large party sailed from Britain to Basel and continued overland to Rome, where they met Pope Cyriacus, himself from Britain. Cyriacus left Rome with the virgins. When the party arrived at Cologne they were attacked and beheaded by Huns, save for Ursula who, rejecting the advances of their chieftain, was killed with an arrow. Jacobus dated the legend to the mid‐fifth century.

The embarkation of Saint Ursula seems to have been a rare subject in seventeenth‐century painting, and NG 30 is the only known example. Whether Claude or his patron intended to show the saint leaving Britain or Rome is unclear, but the latter seems more likely: the building at the extreme left is based on Bramante’s Tempietto di San Pietro in Montorio, and it has been suggested that the substantial palace to the right of it is based on the Palazzo Cancellaria,35 both well‐known buildings in Rome. The Tempietto was built on the supposed site of Saint Peter’s martyrdom and, as Kennedy has pointed out,36 since its round form was partly inspired by the shape of early Christian martyria, Claude may have used it to refer to Ursula’s impending martyrdom, clearly alluded to by the arrows being carried by her companions.37 Ursula herself carries her banner, a red cross on a white ground.38 The resemblance of the palace to the Palazzo Cancellaria, where Cardinal Francesco Barberini, nephew of Pope Urban VIII, was vice chancellor, may have been intended as an indirect [page 99]reference to the picture’s patron, Fausto Poli, who was administrator of the Barberini possessions when NG 30 was painted. The Barberini connection has been further reinforced by the fictional palace being given a doorway like that of the Palazzo Barberini,39 and as noted by Roethlisberger, the flags of the ship in the centre bear the Barberini arms (fig. 3).40 The fortress at the harbour mouth is based on the Castello di Santa Severa between Santa Marinella and Palo, although it differs from the original in that it reaches out into the water like the Castello dell’Ovo at Naples.41 The ships depicted in NG 30 are of the period between 1605 and about 1635.42

It is not known why Poli should have commissioned a painting of this unusual subject.43 Its pendant, Landscape with Saint George killing the Dragon (Hartford, Conn., Wadsworth Atheneum, fig. 4), was painted perhaps two years later.44 It has been suggested that Claude wanted to pair a passive female martyr with an active male saint, the two being linked by their saintly victories: over death in the case of Ursula, and over the devil, symbolised by the dragon, in the case of Saint George.45 It seems more likely that Fausto Poli rather than Claude would have been the originator of any such idea. The scene of NG 30 is set against a rising sun – suitable for an embarkation – which would eventually be contrasted with the dusk setting of the Saint George, just as the pair contrast a marine view and a landscape.46

Two drawings, both in the British Museum, can be definitely connected with the preparation of NG 30. The earlier, LV 198 (fig. 5), shows the broad lines of the composition, albeit without the ship at the centre and with a narrow foreground shore. More significant are two iconographical developments in NG 30 compared to the drawing. First, although Claude already seems to be thinking of Bramante’s Tempietto in the drawing, the spires of the building behind it are Gothic, suggesting that at this stage Claude, or his patron, was thinking of situating the scene in Cologne, site of Saint Ursula’s eventual martyrdom. Secondly, the figure of the saint in the drawing is more prominent than in the painting – in the latter her height, as was typical of Claude’s painted figures at this period, is about one tenth of the height of the picture, whereas it is about one quarter of the height in the drawing.47 Although in the painting the saint and her entourage were ultimately made subservient to the architecture, the later drawing (fig. 6), the largest and most elaborate of Claude’s figure drawings at this stage of his career,48 indicates the care with which the artist approached the complex figural groupings required by the saint’s extensive entourage.

Fig. 4

Landscape with Saint George killing the Dragon, c. 1643. Oil on canvas, 111.7 × 149.5 cm. Hartford, Connecticut, Wadsworth Atheneum. The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund (1937.2) . © Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford Photography Allen Phillips/Wadsworth Atheneum

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Fig. 5

Seaport with the Embarkation of Saint Ursula, 1640 or 1641. Pen and grey‐brown wash, some black chalk lines, 18.9 × 26 cm. London, British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings . © The British Museum, London , 1957,1214.204 © The Trustees of the British Museum

Fig. 6

Saint Ursula and her Companions, 1641. Pen and brown wash, 26.7 × 41.9 cm. London, British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings . © The British Museum, London , 1866,0714.60 © The Trustees of the British Museum

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NG 30 was unfavourably compared to NG 14 after Angerstein’s purchase of the latter,49 and the figures in it reportedly criticised by Fuseli.50 In addition, at the very time that the purchase of NG 30 and the rest of the Angerstein collection was under discussion, the author of the sale catalogue in which Douglas Guest’s copy was offered (see Related Works above) claimed that it had been ‘copied with so much precision, and at the same time with so much kindred spirit, that were the original lost, or should the Country be deprived of the possession, [the copy] would supply the place so well as to leave little to be regretted.’ However, NG 30 was not without defenders. In his Essays on the Picturesque Uvedale Price called it ‘not only one of the best painted pictures of that studious observer of what is beautiful in art and nature, but also one of the best preserved’. He claimed it as an example of what was beautiful, as opposed to sublime or picturesque: ‘I could wish that any person who well recollects, or can again examine the picture, would reflect on the peculiar beauty (in its strictest sense) which arises from the even surface, and silver purity of tint in that furthest building, from the soft haze of the atmosphere, and the aerial perspective produced by the union of these circumstances, which, without any false indistinctness, or uncertainty of outline, make the architecture retire from the eye and melt into the distance.’51 Turner also admired the painting. When as a young man he saw the picture in the Angerstein collection, he reportedly burst into tears, explaining that it was ‘because I shall never be able to paint anything like that picture’.52 And Constable said of NG 30 that it was ‘probably the finest picture of middle tint in the world’.53 Finally, it may be noted that NG 30 appears just to the right of the self portrait included in the imaginary picture gallery painted by Pieter Christoffel Wonder (1780–1852), perhaps completed by 1826 but certainly exhibited in 1831.54

General References

Smith 1837, no. 54; Pattison 1884, p. 228; Davies 1957, pp. 44–5; Roethlisberger 1961, no. 54; Roethlisberger 1975, no. 118; Kitson 1978, pp. 85–7; Wright 1985b, p. 96.

Notes

1. Poli was in the service of Matteo Barberini from before the latter’s election to the papacy, and in the service also of Prince Taddeo Barberini. He was made a cardinal on 13 July 1643, and in 1644 Bishop of Orvieto, where he restored and added to the episcopal palace. For some further information on Poli, see Elena Fumagalli, ‘Poussin et les collectionneurs romains au XVIIe siecle’, in Nicolas Poussin 1594–1665, Grand Palais, Paris 1994–5, pp. 48–57 at p. 50 and nn. 27–30, and Lorenzo Cardella, Memorie storiche de’ Cardinali della Santa Romana Chiesa, 9 vols, Rome 1792–97, vol. 7 (1793), pp. 23–5. For Poli’s role as the Barberini liaison with the Cappella Pontificia, see F. Hammond, Music and Spectacle in Baroque Rome. Barberini Patronage under Urban VIII, New Haven and London 1994, pp. 165ff. For the date and circumstances of Poli’s creation as a cardinal, see von Pastor, vol. 29 (1938), pp. 163–4. (Back to text.)

2. Frances Vivian, ‘Poussin and Claude seen from the Archivio Barberini’, BM , 111, 1969, pp. 719–26 at p. 725. NG 30 was described in Poli’s will as ‘il Quadro dell’Imbarco di Sta Orsola di Monsù Claudio’. (Back to text.)

3. M.A. Lavin, Seventeenth‐Century Barberini Documents and Inventories of Art, New York 1975, p. 440: described as ‘Una marina coll’imbarco di S. Orsola al: p. mi 6: 1:7 cornice noce, e oro di monsù Claudio Lorenese’. NG 30 hung in the third room after the anteroom on the right of the ground‐floor apartment. The pendant Landscape with Saint George (Hartford, Wadsworth Atheneum) hung in the same room: Lavin, p. 431. Carlo Barberini was the eldest son of Taddeo Barberini and Anna Colonna, and a nephew of Cardinal Francesco. (Back to text.)

4. Frances Vivian, cited in note 2, p. 725 and n. 85: described as ‘Altro di sime grandezza [largo pmi 6 alto pmi 5] rapte l’imbarco di S. Orsola, con veduta di vascelli, navj, mare, Porto, e figure dive, Opera dell’istesso con cornice sime’. This Francesco Barberini was the son of Matteo Barberini, prince of Palestrina, and Olimpia Giustiniani. He was made a cardinal in 1690, and was nominated as one of the Inquisitors‐General of the Congregation of the Holy Office in 1726: see L’abbé G.B., Dictionnaire des Cardinaux, Paris 1857, p. 315. (Back to text.)

5. According to Thomas Moore Slade in a letter quoted in W. Buchanan, Memoirs, vol. 1, p. 321, ‘The celebrated picture of the Saint Ursula by Claude, lately purchased by the British government, was brought from Italy with a few other fine pictures by Mr Locke about sixty years ago. It was purchased out of the Barberini Palace by that gentleman, and was considered at that time a most important acqusition to the stock of fine pictures in England.’ (Back to text.)

6. Wornum gives the date of Lock’s purchase as 1760: Wornum 1847, p. 58, but this has not been verified. William Lock travelled from Venice to Rome with the painter Richard Wilson, arriving in late 1751 or early 1752: see W.G. Constable, Richard Wilson, London 1953, pp. 24–5. It is not clear when Lock returned to London; it was presumably by 1765, when he began to have built for himself a London house (now 21 Portman Square), but he may have been in Italy again by 1767. He was certainly in Rome in 1774 with his wife Frederica Augusta, daughter of the diplomat and picture collector Sir Luke Schaub: see John Julius Angerstein and Woodlands 1774–1972, London, Woodlands Art Gallery, 1974, pp. 22–3. Father Thorpe, writing on 15 January 1774, referred to Lock having ‘two of the most beautiful & largest Claudes’: see Ingamells 1997, pp. 608–9. (Back to text.)

7. Buchanan 1824, p. 321: ‘Mr Locke, on leaving his house in Portman square, sold the St. Ursula along with some other fine pictures to Mr Van Heythusen for £3000.’ Lock was last rated for property in Portman Square in 1781: letter of 2 March 1932 from Duncan Gray, Borough Libraries of the Borough of St Marylebone (in the NG dossier). (Back to text.)

8. Desenfans is best known in connection with his collection of paintings, many of which are now at Dulwich Picture Gallery: see Peter Murray, Dulwich Picture Gallery. A Catalogue, London 1980, pp. 17–20. Buchanan 1824, vol. 1, pp. 321–2, relates that Van Heythusen sold NG 30 to Desenfans after buying the collection of Sir Gregory Page of Blackheath (d.1775). The ‘few Pictures remaining undisposed of, from that superlative Assemblage, collected by the late Sir Gregory Page, Bart.’ were sold at auction, London, 8–9 May 1783, so Van Heythusen’s purchase of the Page collection must have occurred by then. For the price paid for NG 30 by Desenfans, see Noel Desenfans, A Descriptive Catalogue.. of some Pictures.. purchased for His Majesty the Late King of Poland, London 1801, pp. 9–10. (Back to text.)

9. NG 30 was in Desenfans’s exhibition at 125 Pall Mall, London, from 8 April 1786 (no. 420), and his exhibition at the same premises from 8 June 1786 (no. 244) where described as ‘A sea port with St. Ursula, the history of the eleven thousand virgins going to the Holy Land – out of the palace Barberini. Mr Fittler, engraver to His Majesty, is now engraving this picture for Alderman Boydell. 5ft.2 by 6ft.5, on canvas’, and was lot 42 of the Desenfans sale, Christie’s, 17 July 1786. Referring to the Desenfans exhibition, James Dallaway wrote that ‘many capital pictures were eclipsed by the landscape of [page 102]Claude Lorraine, of the procession of St Ursula, and the eleven thousand virgins’: Anecdotes of the Arts in England, London 1800, p. 518. Slade was active 1795–1822: Index of Paintings Sold, vol. 1, p. 1028. Lady Amabel Lucas noted NG 30 (‘a fine Sea‐Port by Claude Lorraine with the Embarkation of St. Ursula, from Mr. Locke’s Collection’) when she visited Desenfans’s premises on 12 April 1786: Diaries of Lady Amabel Yorke 1769–1827, vol. 8, p. 313. (Back to text.)

Fig. 7

A.E. Chalon, Study at the British Institution, 1806. Pen and brown ink, 31.7 × 53 cm. London, British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings . © The British Museum, London , 1879,0614.757 © The Trustees of the British Museum

10. Buchanan 1824, vol. 1, pp. 326–7. Slade relates that after it had been removed to London ‘my charming St. Ursula of Claude I likewise offered to Lord Darnley and Sir Philip Stephens, as also to the late Lord Kinnard for the same price I gave Des Enfans for it, which was £1200, although I was certain I would get much more, but they all declined it’. Slade’s letter continues: ‘I then got £1700 conditionally, and it was soon after sold to Mr Angerstein for £2500.’ The conditional sale was possibly that negotiated by Desenfans in his own name on 24 May 1791 when he sold to Lord Lansdowne, ‘1 St. Ursula Claude, 2 Salvator Rosas viz Two Historys of Pythagoras one giving money to the Fisherman, the other Pythagoras coming out of the Cave for two thousand Guineas but Ld.L agrees that it is in Mr Desenfans Power to sell the three last Pictures to any body else for his greater advantage during a Fortnight to come’: D. Sutton in Country Life, vol. 116, December 1954, p. 1958, and ibid. , ‘A Wealth of Pictures’, Apollo, 119, 1984, pp. 346–56 at p. 348. (Back to text.)

11. In a letter of that date William Buchanan, then in Edinburgh, wrote to James Irvine listing the pictures in Angerstein’s collection ‘from my private notes’: Brigstocke 1982, p. 51. The paintings so listed included ‘Lock’s famous Claude’. Although Angerstein finally acquired five paintings by Claude, only NG 30 had once been in Lock’s collection. In a letter written by Buchanan to David Stewart on 23 April 1804 he says that the price for NG 30 had been 2500 guineas: Brigstocke 1982a, p. 276, but Slade gives the price as £2500 (see above). For Farington’s and Angerstein’s own unfavourable comparison of NG 30 with the Bouillon Claudes (NG 12 and NG 14) see The Diary of Joseph Farington, vol. 6, pp. 2004–5 (entries for 3 and 5 April 1803). Slade’s account of the sale of NG 30 (see note 10) hints that he did not sell it directly to Angerstein. In Notes connected with Young’s Catalogue of the Angerstein Collection (NG Archive 1995/48), facing p. 6, the anonymous author wrote of NG 30 ‘purchased of a Mr. Ward’, who may have been the dealer of that name active early in the nineteenth century: see Index of Paintings Sold 1801–1805, p. 1041. (Back to text.)

12. See note 9 above. (Back to text.)

13. See note 9 above. (Back to text.)

14. Whitley 1928, p. 111. A pen and ink and watercolour drawing by A.E. Chalon in the British Museum (inv. No.1879‐6‐14‐757) shows artists and students at the British Institution copying paintings with NG 30 hanging on the wall behind (fig. 7). The drawing is described in the BM Register as ‘Study at the British Institution 1805’, but, as Kim Sloan has written (14 February 1997), this date must be wrong since the old masters were lent only after closure of the exhibition of modern masters which took place in January 1806. The drawing is catalogued in L. Binyon, Catalogue of Drawings by British Artists in the British Museum, London 1898, p. 205. (Back to text.)

15. Information derived from the dossier and from the Conservation Dossier, vol. I, p. 5. The picture was scheduled to be shown in August 1943 but may not have been because too small a case was sent for transport, and no press reports of its exhibition have been found. (Back to text.)

16. Roethlisberger 1961, no. 73. (Back to text.)

17. Annotations in copies of the sale catalogue give the painting’s size as 3 × 3ft or 3½ft: Index of Paintings Sold 1811–1815, Part 1, p. 277. The vendor was said to be a Worcestershire gentleman: ibid. , p. 31. (Back to text.)

18. See A Descriptive Catalogue of Paintings by British Artists, executed for A. Davison, Esq., of subjects selected from the History of England, as arranged in his house in St. James’s Square, printed by Bulmer & Co. in 1806. (Back to text.)

19. Sold from one of the upper bedrooms of Thirlestane House. Possibly the same picture as that described as ‘Landscape, with Buildings and a group of Figures on the Seashore, Claude’, numbered CLV and recorded in the drawing room of Thirlestane House in 1846: Hours in the Picture Gallery of Thirlestane House, Cheltenham 1846, p. 36, and in the 1858 edition of that work as no. 351. (Back to text.)

20. A photograph of this painting in the NG dossier is inscribed on the reverse ‘In poss. Marshall Spink, 1945’. Additional provenance is given in Roethlisberger 1961, no. 247; there described as probably Italian, eighteenth or later seventeenth century. (Back to text.)

21. Waagen 1857, p. 368. (Back to text.)

22. Part traced on the verso. See Kitson 1978, pp. 85–6. (Back to text.)

23. See also Roethlisberger 1971, no. 19. (Back to text.)

24. J.J.L. Whiteley has suggested that this drawing has a better correspondence to Claude’s Seaport with the Landing of Cleopatra (Paris, Louvre): Whiteley 1998, p. 106. (Back to text.)

25. By, for example, John Smith (Smith 1837, vol. 8, p. 304). (Back to text.)

26. Whiteley 1998, pp. 32, 111–12. (Back to text.)

27. As suggested by M. Kitson in London, Kenwood, 1969, no. 75. (Back to text.)

28. For a discussion of this and other etchings by Barrière after Claude, see Roethlisberger 1961, pp. 192–4, and by the same author, ‘From Goffredo Wals to the Beginnings of Claude Lorrain’, Artibus et Historiae, 32, 1995 (published 1997), pp. 9–37. (Back to text.)

29. See Ch. Le Blanc, Manuel de l’Amateur d’Estampes, 4 vols, Paris 1854–89, vol. 2, p. 237 (with date wrongly given as 1782), and note 9 above. (Back to text.)

30. I am grateful to Susan Ward for this information and for the photograph. The museum also owns another tapestry of the same manufacture and of similar size showing the Martyrdom of Saint Ursula (inv. no. 1976.736). (Back to text.)

31. On possible causes of blanching generally, see J. Plesters, ‘Possible causes of blanching involving changes in pigments or interaction of pigment and medium’, NGTB , 4, 1980, pp. 61–3. (Back to text.)

32. For comment on the 1917 cleaning, see Sir Charles Holmes, ‘Notes in the National Gallery, II, The “Tone” of Claude’, BM , 33, 1918, pp. 30–5. For an account of how NG 30 looked in 1853, see the evidence of Sir Charles Eastlake, Report from the Select Committee on the National Gallery, 1853, para. 6229; for Samuel Palmer’s delight in 1865 in its ‘dirtiness’, see A.H. Palmer, The Life and Letters of Samuel Palmer, Painter and Etcher, London 1892, p. 267. (Back to text.)

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33. As noted by Wyld, Mills and Plesters 1980, pp. 49–63 at p. 59. (Back to text.)

34. Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend, trans. by W.G. Ryan, 2 vols, Princeton 1993, pp. xiii–xiv. Louis Réau (Iconographie de l’Art Chrétien, 3 vols, Paris 1955–9, vol. 3 (1959), p. 1297) has said that the story of Saint Ursula originated with Geoffrey de Monmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae; according to J.E. Gugumus, it originated with the monk Enrico di S. Bertino, who dated Ursula’s birth to 975 (Bibliotheca Sanctorum, vol. 9, pp. 1254–5) but the inscription on Barrière’s etching (see Prints (1)) seems, to confirm that in the case of NG 30 the source was the Golden Legend, which was known in numerous editions. (Back to text.)

35. Kennedy 1972, pp. 260–83, at pp. 277, 279. The composition of the left‐hand side of NG 30, and of some other seaport scenes by Claude, may be based ultimately on a capriccio scene frescoed c. 1625 by Agostino Tassi at the Palazzo Lancellotti (fig. 8): Patrizia Cavazzini, Palazzo Lancellotti ai Coronari. Cantiere di Agostino Tassi, Rome 1998, p. 137. I am grateful to Ms Cavazzini for drawing my attention to this and for providing a photograph of Tassi’s fresco. (Back to text.)

36. Kennedy 1972, p. 279. (Back to text.)

37. For a suggestion that the saint may have been perceived as travelling through martyrdom towards God as symbolised by the sun, see Wine 1994, p. 34. Similarly derived from the Tempietto are the eucharistic symbols in the metopes: Roethlisberger 1961, p. 191. Visible in NG 30 are a chalice, a paten and an incense burner. For the significance of the use of such symbols, and of the Doric Order in the Tempietto, see P. Murray, Bramante’s Tempietto, Newcastle 1972, pp. 8–10. (Back to text.)

38. A similar banner is shown, for example, in Carpaccio’s Ursula cycle (Venice, Accademia), and Benozzo Gozzoli’s Saint Ursula with Angels and Donor (Washington, National Gallery of Art). (Back to text.)

39. Kennedy 1972, p. 277. The palace in NG 30 has also been wrongly seen as derived from the Villa Medici (D. Graf, ‘Die “Villa Medici” in den Hafenbildern des Claude Lorrain’, Kunstgeschichtliche Studien für Kurt Bauch zum 70. Geburtstag von seinen Schülern, Munich and Berlin 1967, p. 204). (Back to text.)

40. Roethlisberger 1961, p. 191 (i.e. three golden bees on a blue background, here somewhat roughly indicated). (Back to text.)

41. Kennedy 1972, p. 275, n. 61, who, however, wrongly calls the town San Severo; Roethlisberger 1979, pp. 20–8 at p. 27, and in a review of Kitson 1978 in Master Drawings, vol. 16, no. 2, 1978, p. 179, where he points out that the view of the castle in NG 30 is in reverse (presumably looking out to sea). (Back to text.)

42. D. Cordingly, ‘Claude Lorrain and the Southern Seaport Tradition’, Apollo, 103, 1976, pp. 208–13 at p. 209 (text to fig. 4). (Back to text.)

43. Among other things, Saint Ursula was invoked for a holy death. She was the patron saint of the Sorbonne, and of drapers: L. Du Broc de Segange, Les Saints Patrons des Corporations, 2 vols, Paris 1887, vol. 2, pp. 366–8. The Ursuline Order had been founded in 1534 at Brescia. Shortly before NG 30 was completed there was a real‐life embarkation of three Ursulines when Marie Guyart and two companions from the convent at Tours sailed from Dieppe to found an Ursuline mission to the Huron and Iroquois near Quebec. They arrived on 1 August 1639 and were joined a year later by two Ursulines from the Paris convent. The first stone of the new convent in Quebec was laid in the spring of 1641 : see [Claude Martin] La Vie de la venerable Mere Marie de l’Incarnation premiere superieure des Ursulines de la Nouvelle France Tirée de ses lettres et de ses Ecrits, Paris 1677; AMDG, Les Ursulines de Québec depuis leur établissement jusqu’à nos jours, 4 vols, Quebec 1863–6, vol. 1 (1863), passim; J.L. Beaumier, Marie Guyart de l’Incarnation, Three Rivers (Canada) 1959, pp. 127–34. It is clear from these accounts that the Ursulines worked closely with the Jesuits in Canada. One of the latter, Père Le Jeune, superior of the Jesuit mission in Canada, who could not have seen NG 30, nevertheless wrote c. 1639 of the Ursulines’ voyage there in terms which could evoke it: ‘Voilà des vierges tendres et délicates, toutes prêtes à exposer leur vie aux hasards de l’océan, pour venir chercher de petites âmes sous un climat rigoureux et pour subir des travaux qui étonnent des hommes mêmes…’, quoted in Beaumier, op. cit. , p. 119. (Back to text.)

44. See Roethlisberger 1961, no. 73, and Kitson 1978, no. 73. (Back to text.)

45. J.C. Forte, ‘St George and the Dragon’, Portfolio, vol. 4, no. 5 (1982), pp. 97–101, developing a point briefly made in Roethlisberger 1961, p. 191. It has also been suggested that both paintings may allude to the dissemination of the Christian faith, and that they are linked by the theme of female purity: Russell 1982, p. 144. (Back to text.)

46. NG 30 has traditionally been regarded as a morning picture: see, for example, Report of the Select Committee on the National Gallery, London 1853, paras 857, 2144–5. (Back to text.)

47. Similar points were made by me in Copenhagen 1992, p. 130. (Back to text.)

48. As pointed out in Roethlisberger 1968, p. 197. (Back to text.)

49. See note 11 above. (Back to text.)

50. ‘FUSELI gives a decided opinion on WILSON’s figures – figures, it is difficult to say, which of the two introduced or handled with greater infelicity; treated by CLAUDE or WILSON, St. URSULA with her Virgins, and Aeneas landing; NIOBE with her family, or CEYX drawn on the shore, have an equal claim on our indifference or mirth’: William Carey, Letter to J*** A***, Esq. A Connoisseur in London, Manchester 1809, p. 24. Whatever the source of Carey’s comment, it was not one of Fuseli’s lectures as subsequently published in Lectures on Painting delivered at the Royal Academy, London 1830. (Back to text.)

51. The last passage has been quoted by J. Sunderland in ‘Uvedale Price and the Picturesque’, Apollo, 93, 1971, pp. 197–203 at p. 200, from vol. 2, p. 241 of the 1810 (2nd edn.) of Uvedale Price’s book, which had been first published in 1794. Uvedale Price’s discussion of NG 30 in the context of the distinctions between the beautiful, the sublime and the picturesque is at pp. 240–5 of that volume. In vol. 1, pp. 351–2, Uvedale Price had written: ‘Mr. Gilpin cannot but remember that beautiful seaport which did belong to Mr. Lock, and which, could pictures choose their own possessors, would never have left him; he must have observed that the architecture on the left hand was regular, perfect, and as smooth as such finished buildings appear in nature.’ The reference to Gilpin was to Dr William Gilpin, Prebendary of Salisbury, the second edition of whose An essay upon prints: containing remarks upon the principles of picturesque beauty had been published in 1768. (Back to text.)

52. Kitson 1983, pp. 2–15 at p. 5. As Kitson points out, the story, written by George Jones after Turner’s death, may be apocryphal, but Turner at all events knew the painting, because in a note made in 1821 on Claude’s Seaport with Ulysses restituting Chryseis he observed a ‘grey green tone like the St Ursula’: see J. Ziff, ‘Copies of Claude’s paintings in the sketch‐books of J.M.W. Turner’, GBA , 65, 1965, pp. 51–64 at p. 58. (Back to text.)

53. For the full quotation, see ed. R.B. Beckett, John Constable’s Discourses, 1836, Ipswich 1970, p. 53. For a possible response to NG 30 by John Keats, see C. Pace, ‘Claude the Enchanted: Interpretations of Claude in England in the earlier Nineteenth Century’, BM , 111, 1969, pp. 733–40 at p. 734. For Ruskin’s criticism of the perspective of the curved portico at the left of NG 30, see Ruskin, Works, vol. 3 (1903), p. 607 (first published in 1843 in Modern Painters, vol. 1). (Back to text.)

54. Egerton 1998, p. 402 and p. 403, fig. 2. Wonder’s painting was entitled Patrons and Lovers of Art, or The Imaginary Picture Gallery. (Back to text.)

Fig. 8

Agostino Tassi, Capriccio, c. 1625. Fresco. Rome, Palazzo Lancellotti. © Palazzo Lancellotti, Rome Photo: ARTGEN / Alamy Stock Photo

Abbreviations

BM
British Museum
BM
Burlington Magazine, London, 1903–
LV
Liber Veritatis
MRD
Roethlisberger 1968b (Marcel Roethlisberger: Catalogue raisonné of Drawings)

List of archive references cited

  • Leeds, West York Archive Service, Leeds District Archives: Lady Amabel Lucasnée Yorke (1751–1833), Baroness Lucas and Dowager Viscountess Polwarth, later created Countess de Grey in her own right, Diaries, 1769–1827

List of references cited

Abbé G.B. 1857
G.B., L’abbé, Dictionnaire des Cardinaux, Paris 1857
AMDG 1863–6
AMDG, Les Ursulines de Québec depuis leur établissement jusqu’à nos jours, 4 vols, Quebec 1863–6
Bibliotheca Sanctorum 1961–70
Bibliotheca Sanctorum, 12 vols and index, Rome 1961–70
Binyon 1898
Binyon, L., Catalogue of Drawings by British Artists in the British Museum, London 1898
Brigstocke 1982
Brigstocke, Hugh, William Buchanan and the nineteenth‐century Art Trade: 100 Letters to his Agents in London and Italy, London 1982
Buchanan 1824
Buchanan, William, Memoirs of Painting, with a Chronological History of the Importation of Pictures by the Great Masters into England since the French Revolution, 2 vols, London 1824
Cardella 1792–97
Cardella, Lorenzo, Memorie storiche de’ Cardinali della Santa Romana Chiesa, 9 vols, Rome 1792–97
Carey 1809
Carey, William, Letter to J*** A***, Esq. A Connoisseur in London, Manchester 1809
Cavazzini 1998
Cavazzini, Patrizia, Palazzo Lancellotti ai Coronari. Cantiere di Agostino Tassi, Rome 1998
Complete Peerage 1910–59
Doubleday, H.A., Lord Howard de Walden, G.H. White and R.S. Lea, eds, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct, or Dormant, 12 or 13 vols, 2nd edn, London 1910–59
Constable 1953
Constable, W.G., Richard Wilson, London 1953
Constable 1970
Constable, John, John Constable’s Discourses, compiled and annotated by R.B. Beckett, Ipswich 1970
Cordingly 1976
Cordingly, D., ‘Claude Lorrain and the Southern Seaport Tradition’, Apollo, 1976, 103, 208–13
Dallaway 1800
Dallaway, James, Anecdotes of the Arts in England, London 1800
Davies 1946
Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: The French School, London 1946 (revised 2nd edn, London 1957)
Davies 1957
Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: The French School, 2nd edn, revised, London 1957
Descriptive Catalogue 1806
A Descriptive Catalogue of Paintings by British Artists, executed for A. Davison, Esq., of subjects selected from the History of England, as arranged in his house in St. James’s Square, printed by Bulmer & Co., 1806
Desenfans 1801
Desenfans, N., A Descriptive Catalogue… of some Pictures… purchased for His Majesty the Late King of Poland, London 1801
Du Broc de Segange 1887
Du Broc de Segange, L., Les Saints Patrons des Corporations, 2 vols, Paris 1887
Duchesne 1828–33
Duchesne, aîné, Musée de peinture et de sculpture ou recueil des principaux tableaux statues et bas‐reliefs des collections publiques et particulières de l’Europe, 14 vols, Paris 1828–33
Egerton 1998
Egerton, Judy, National Gallery Catalogues: The British School, London 1998
Engravings from the Pictures of the National Gallery, London 1840
Farington 1978–98
Farington, Joseph, The Diary of Joseph Farington, eds Kenneth Garlick, Angus Macintyre and Kathryn Cave, index compiled by Evelyn Newby (vols I–VI ed. Kenneth Garlick and Angus Macintyre; vols VII–XVI ed. Kathryn Cave), 16 vols, New Haven and London 1978–98
Forte 1982
Forte, J.C., ‘St George and the Dragon’, Portfolio, 1982, vol. 4, no. 5, 97–101
Fredericksen 1988–96
Fredericksen, Burton, ed., assisted by Julia I. Armstrong and Doris A. Mendenhall, The Index of Paintings Sold in the British Isles during the Nineteenth Century (I (1801–5), Santa Barbara 1988; II (1806–10), 2 vols, Santa Barbara 1990; III (1811–15), 2 vols, Munich, London, New York and Paris 1993; IV (1816–20), 2 vols, Santa Monica 1996 (revised versions of these volumes can be consulted online)), 4 vols (10 parts), Oxford, Santa Barbara, Munich, London, New York, Paris and Santa Monica 1988–96
Fumagalli 1994
Fumagalli, E., ‘Poussin et les collectionneurs romains au XVIIe siècle’, in Nicolas Poussin, 1594–1665, P. Rosenberg (exh. cat. Paris, Grand Palais, 1994–5), 1994, 48–57
Fuseli 1830
Fuseli, H., Lectures on Painting delivered at the Royal Academy, London 1830
Graf 1967
Graf, D., ‘Die “Villa Medici” in den Hafenbildern des Claude Lorrain’, in Kunstgeschichtliche Studien für Kurt Bauch zum 70. Geburtstag von seinen Schülern, Munich and Berlin 1967, 204
Hammond 1994
Hammond, F., Music and Spectacle in Baroque Rome. Barberini Patronage under Urban VIII, New Haven and London 1994
Holmes 1918
Holmes, Charles, Sir, ‘Notes in the National Gallery, II, The “Tone” of Claude’, Burlington Magazine, 1918, 33, 30–5
Hours in the Picture Gallery of Thirlestane House, Cheltenham 1846
Ingamells 1997
Ingamells, John, A Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy, 1701–1800: Compiled from the Brinsley Ford Archive, New Haven and London 1997
Jacobus de Voragine 1993
trans. Ryan, William Granger, Jacobus de Voragine. The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, 2 vols, Princeton, New Jersey 1993 (first edn, 1969; paperback edn, 1995; single-volume reprint (but with identical pagination), introduction by Duffy, Eamon, Princeton 2012)
John Julius Angerstein 1974
John Julius Angerstein and Woodlands 1774–1974 (exh. cat. London, Woodlands Art Gallery, 13 September to 5 November 1974), [1974]
Kennedy 1972
Kennedy, I.G., ‘Claude and Architecture’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 1972, 35, 260–83
Kitson 1969
Kitson, M., The Art of Claude Lorrain (exh. cat. Hayward Gallery, London 1969), London 1969
Kitson 1978
Kitson, M., Claude Lorrain: Liber Veritatis, London 1978
Kitson 1983
Kitson, M., ‘Turner and Claude’, Turner Studies, 1983, vol. 2, no. 2, 2–15
Lavin 1975
Lavin, M.A., Seventeenth‐Century Barberini Documents and Inventories of Art, New York 1975
Le Blanc 1854–89
Le Blanc, Ch., Manuel de l’Amateur d’Estampes, 4 vols, Paris 1854–89
Martin 1677
[Martin, Claude], La Vie de la venerable Mere Marie de l’Incarnation premiere superieure des Ursulines de la Nouvelle France Tirée de ses lettres et de ses Ecrits, Paris 1677
Murray 1972
Murray, P., Bramante’s Tempietto, Newcastle 1972
Murray 1980
Murray, P., Dulwich Picture Gallery. A Catalogue, London 1980
National Gallery. A Selection of its Pictures. Engraved by George Doo…and others, London 1875
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Negro 1999
Negro, A., La Collezione Rospigliosi: La quadreria e la committenza artistica di una famiglia patrizia a Roma nel sei e settecento, Rome 1999
Pace 1969
Pace, C., ‘Claude the Enchanted: Interpretations of Claude in England in the earlier Nineteenth Century’, Burlington Magazine, 1969, 111, 733–40
Palmer 1892
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Pattison 1884
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Plesters 1980
Plesters, J., ‘Possible causes of blanching involving changes in pigment or interaction of pigment and medium’, National Gallery Technical Bulletin, 1980, 4, 61–3
Price 1810
Price, Uvedale, Essays on the Picturesque, 2nd edn, London 1810
Réau 1955–9
Réau, Louis, Iconographie de l’art chrétien, 3 vols (vol. 2 in 2 parts, vol. 3 in 3 parts), Paris 1955–9
Report 1853
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Roethlisberger 1961
Roethlisberger, M., Claude Lorrain: The Paintings, 2 vols, London 1961
Roethlisberger 1968b
Roethlisberger, M., Claude Lorrain. The Drawings, 2 vols, Berkeley and Los Angeles 1968
Roethlisberger 1971
Roethlisberger, M., The Claude Lorrain Album in the Norton Simon, Inc. Museum of Art, Los Angeles 1971
Roethlisberger 1975
Roethlisberger, M., Gaspard Dughet, Rome 1615–1675, New York and London, Richard Feigen & Co. and Herner Wengraf Ltd, 1975
Roethlisberger 1978
Roethlisberger, M., ‘review of M. Kitson, Claude Lorrain: Liber Veritatis, London 1978’, Master Drawings, 1978, vol. 16, no. 2, 179
Roethlisberger 1979
Roethlisberger, M., ‘Additional Works by Goffredo Wals and Claude Lorrain’, Burlington Magazine, 1979, 121, 20–8
Roethlisberger 1995
Roethlisberger, M., ‘From Goffredo Wals to the Beginnings of Claude Lorrain’, Artibus et Historiae, 1995 (published 1997), 32, 9–37
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[Ruskin, J.], Modern Painters, 5 vols, London 1846–60
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Russell 1982
Russell, H.D., Claude Lorrain 1600–1682 (exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington DC 1982), 1982
Smith 1837
Smith, John, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters … (with Supplement), vol. 8, French Painters, London 1837
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Sutton, D., in Country Life, December 1954, 116, 1958
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Thiel and Wine 1991
Thiel, P.J.J. van and H. Wine, Meeting of Masterpieces: Jan Both – Claude Lorrain (exh. cat. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 1991), 1991
Vivian 1969
Vivian, Frances, ‘Poussin and Claude seen from the Archivio Barberini’, Burlington Magazine, 1969, 111, 719–26
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Waagen 1857a
Waagen, Gustav F., Galleries and Cabinets of Art in Great Britain… visited in 1854 and 1856…, London 1857
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Whiteley, J.J.L., Claude Lorrain. Drawings from the Collections of the British Museum and the Ashmolean Museum (exh. cat. London 1998), 1998
Whitley 1928
Whitley, W.T., Art in England 1800–1820, Cambridge 1928
Wine and Koester 1992
Wine, H. and O. Koester, Fransk Guldalder. Poussin og Claude og maleriet i det 17 århundredes Frankrig (exh. cat. Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, 1992), Copenhagen 1992
Wornum 1847
Wornum, R.N., revised by C.L. Eastlake, Descriptive and Historical Catalogue of the Pictures in the National Gallery, London 1847
Wright1985b
Wright, C., Masterpieces of reality: French 17th century painting (exh. cat. Leicester 1985–6), 1985
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Wyld, M., J. Mills and J. Plesters, ‘Some Observations on Blanching (with Special Reference to the Paintings of Claude)’, in National Gallery Technical Bulletin, 1980, 4, 48–63
Young 1823
Young, J., A Catalogue of the Celebrated Collection of Pictures of the late John Julius Angerstein, Esq., London 1823
Ziff 1965
Ziff, J., ‘Copies of Claude’s Paintings in the Sketch Books of J.M.W. Turner’, Gazette des Beaux‐Arts, 1965, 65, 51–64

List of exhibitions cited

Amsterdam 1991
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, Meeting of Masterpieces: Jan Both – Claude Lorrain, 1991 (exh. cat.: Thiel and Wine 1991)
Copenhagen 1992
Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kunst, Fransk Guldalder. Poussin og Claude og maleriet i det 17. århundredes Frankrig, 1992 (exh. cat.: Wine and Koester 1992)
London 1786a
London, 125 Pall Mall, Desenfans’s exhibition, April 1786
London 1786b
London, 125 Pall Mall, Desenfans’s exhibition, June 1786
London, National Gallery, National Gallery Picture of the Month, August 1943
London, National Gallery, Watch this Space – an Exhibition about Perspective in Painting, 1982
London, National Gallery, Claude. The Poetic Landscape, 1994 (exh. cat.: Wine 1994)
London, National Gallery, National Gallery Collectors: John Julius Angerstein, 13 November 1996–9 February 1997

The Organisation of the Catalogue

This is a catalogue of the seventeenth‐century French paintings in the National Gallery. It includes one painting by a Flemish artist (NG 2291 by Jakob Ferdinand Voet) and two which may or may not be French (NG 83 and NG 5448). An explanation of how the terms ‘French’ and ‘seventeenth‐century’ are here used, are given in the Preface.

The artists are catalogued in alphabetical order. Under each artist, autograph works come first, followed by works in which I believe the studio played a part, then those which are entirely studio productions or later copies. Where there is more than one work by an artist, they are arranged in order of acquisition – that is, in accordance with their inventory numbers.

Each entry is arranged as follows:

TITLE: I have adopted the traditional title of each painting, except where it might be misleading to do so.

DATE: Where a work is inscribed with its date, the date is recorded immediately after the note of media and measurements, together with any other inscriptions. Otherwise, the date is given immediately below the title; an explanation for the choice of date is provided in the body of the catalogue entry.

MEDIA AND MEASUREMENTS: All the paintings have been physically examined and measured by Paul Ackroyd (or in the case of NG 165 by Larry Keith) and myself. Height precedes width. Measurements are of the painted surface (ignoring insignificant variations). Additional information on media and measurements, where appropriate, is provided in the Technical Notes.

SIGNATURE AND DATE: The information derives from the observations of Paul Ackroyd, Larry Keith and myself during the course of examining the paintings. The use of square brackets indicates letters or numerals that are not visible but may reasonably be assumed once to have been so.

Provenance: I have provided the birth and death dates, places of residence and occupations of earlier owners where these are readily available, for example in The Dictionary of National Biography, La Dictionnaire de biographie française, The Complete Peerage and Who was Who. Since I have generally not acknowledged my debt to these publications in individual notes, I am pleased to do so here. In some cases basic information about former owners is amplified in the notes.

Exhibitions: Although they are not strictly exhibitions, long‐term loans to other collections have been included under this heading (but do not appear in the List of Exhibitions forming part of the bibliographical references at the back of the catalogue). Exhibitions are listed in date order. A number in parentheses following reference to an exhibition is that assigned to the painting in the catalogue of the exhibition.

Related Works: Dimensions have been given for paintings, where known, and these works may be assumed to be oil on canvas unless otherwise indicated. I have not given dimensions or media for drawings and prints, except for those that are illustrated, where these details are given in the caption.

Technical Notes: These derive from examination of the paintings by, and my discussions with, Martin Wyld, Head of Conservation, and Paul Ackroyd and Larry Keith of the Conservation Department; from investigation of the paintings by Ashok Roy, Head of the Scientific Department, and his colleagues Raymond White and Marika Spring; and from the publications and articles (mainly in various issues of the National Gallery Technical Bulletin) referred to in the relevant notes.

In the discussion of each painting I have tried to take account of information and opinions that were in the public domain before the end of 2000. Exceptionally, because I knew in advance that Poussin’s Annunciation (NG 5472) would be lent to an exhibition held at the Louvre, Paris, early in 2001, I have mentioned, albeit in a note and without discussion, Marc Fumaroli’s suggestion in the exhibition catalogue concerning the picture’s original function. Except where otherwise indicated, translations are my own and biblical quotations are from the Authorised Version (King James Bible).

General References: In the case of pictures acquired by 1957, I have included a reference to Martin Davies’s French School catalogue of that year; I have referred to his 1946 catalogue only when there was some material development in his views between the two dates. In the case of subsequently acquired paintings, I have referred to the interim catalogue entry published in the relevant National Gallery Report. In addition, General References include relevant catalogues of pictures (not necessarily catalogues raisonnés), but not other material.

List of Publications Cited: This includes only publications referred to more than once.

List of Exhibitions: This is a list both of exhibitions in which the paintings here catalogued have appeared and of exhibition catalogues cited in the notes. The list is in date order.

About this version

Version 1, generated from files HW_2001__16.xml dated 07/03/2025 and database__16.xml dated 09/03/2025 using stylesheet 16_teiToHtml_externalDb.xsl dated 03/01/2025. Structural mark-up applied to skeleton document in full; document updated to use external database of archival and bibliographic references; entries for NG30, NG61, NG62, NG1449, NG2967, NG4919, NG5597, NG5763, NG6331, NG6471, NG6477 and NG6513 prepared for publication.

Cite this entry

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https://data.ng.ac.uk/0E8Z-000B-0000-0000
Permalink (latest version)
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Chicago style
Wine, Humphrey. “NG 30, Seaport with the Embarkation of Saint Ursula”. 2001, online version 1, March 9, 2025. https://data.ng.ac.uk/0E8Z-000B-0000-0000.
Harvard style
Wine, Humphrey (2001) NG 30, Seaport with the Embarkation of Saint Ursula. Online version 1, London: National Gallery, 2025. Available at: https://data.ng.ac.uk/0E8Z-000B-0000-0000 (Accessed: 20 March 2025).
MHRA style
Wine, Humphrey, NG 30, Seaport with the Embarkation of Saint Ursula (National Gallery, 2001; online version 1, 2025) <https://data.ng.ac.uk/0E8Z-000B-0000-0000> [accessed: 20 March 2025]