Claude, 'The Enchanted Castle', 1664

The Enchanted Castle

Claude

Room 29

About the work

Overview

Threatened with marriage to a monster Psyche, a mortal, is blown away by the West Wind. She awakens near a magical palace and falls in love with Cupid. He makes Psyche promise not to look at his divine face, but she breaks this promise and Cupid abandons her. The subject of this painting is taken from Apuleius' Metamorphoses.

Psyche sits in the foreground, deep in thought or melancholy. Claude perhaps shows the moment before Psyche meets Cupid rather than when he leaves her. Alternatively, this scene may represent another episode in the story when Psyche is alone, when her two jealous sisters leave after persuading her to murder Cupid. The two figures in the boat on the right are perhaps her sisters.

Cupid’s enchanted castle combines architecture seen by Claude in and around Rome with the imaginary: the grand exterior of a townhouse or palazzo is attached to circular towers and ruins. The imposing rocky hillside and sheltered seaside cove show Claude’s imagination and skill at conveying perspective and scale.

In-depth

Threatened with marriage to a monster Psyche, a mortal, is blown away by the West Wind. She awakens near a magical palace and falls in love with Cupid. He makes Psyche promise not to look at his divine face, but she breaks this promise and Cupid abandons her. The story is told in Books IV to VI of Metamorphoses, also known as The Golden Ass, written by Apuleius.

Psyche sits in the foreground, deep in thought or melancholy. Claude may have based this figure on an illustration in Apileius' Metamorphoses. However, she looks similar to the figure representing Mediation in a seventeenth-century French edition of Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia, a book where ideas are shown through images of people with particular expressions and attributes.

Claude perhaps shows the moment before Psyche meets Cupid rather than when he leaves her. However, the figure’s pose does not match the written story, which says she ‘lay flat upon the ground and watched her husband’s flight as far as her sight enabled her’ and then in despair, ‘threw herself over the edge of a nearby river’. Alternatively, this scene may represent another moment in the narrative when Psyche is alone: when her two jealous sisters leave after persuading her to murder Cupid. The two figures in the boat on the right are perhaps her sisters. They also appear in the painting’s pair Landscape with Psyche saved from drowning, now in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne.

This work was painted in 1664 for Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna (1637–1689) who had recently married Maria Mancini (1639–1715). Like Psyche, she had come from the west – from France to Rome. Yet the painting’s subject is not a celebratory one but rather alludes to marital difficulties. Ironically, the relationship between Colonna and Mancini was breaking down by 1665, the year before Claude completed both paintings. However, it is unlikely that Claude would have deliberately painted a picture that related so negatively to the couple’s marriage. Neither painting remained in Colonna’s collection by 1679; perhaps he no longer liked the subjects.

In this painting, Cupid’s enchanted castle combines various architectural styles seen by Claude in and around Rome with imaginary examples: the grand exterior of a townhouse or palazzo is attached to circular towers and ruins associated with military fortification. These buildings may reflect the Colonna family’s long-standing profession as builders in Rome. The imposing rocky hillside and sheltered seaside cove shows Claude’s imagination and skill at conveying perspective and scale. The isolated landscape and cool colouring adds to the solemn tone.

Want to find out more?

Delve deeper and explore the catalogue entry for this painting.

Key facts

Details

Full title: Landscape with Psyche outside the Palace of Cupid ('The Enchanted Castle')
Artist: Claude
Artist dates: 1604/5? - 1682
Date made: 1664
Medium and support: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 87.1 × 151.3 cm
Acquisition credit: Bought with contributions from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund, 1981
Inventory number: NG6471
Location: Room 29
Collection: Main Collection
Frame: 17th-century French Frame

Provenance

According to the inscription on the verso of LV 162, painted for Lorenzo Onofrio Colonna (1637–89) in 1664; in the possession of the Marchese Pallavicino by 1696; according to the second Index to the Liber Veritatis, owned by ‘Mr Davenant’; offered for sale, and possibly sold, by auction by ‘Mr. D’Avenant’ at an unknown date (lot 45, 46, 47 or 48); apparently sold together with its pendant, Psyche saved from drowning (Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz Museum), by Mr Bragge, his sale, London, Prestage, 15 February 1750 (lot 71 or 72, £6 10s. and £6 6s., both to ‘Dr Chauncy’); according to Earlom’s engraving after LV 162 published in 1777, then in the collection of Nathaniel Chauncey of Castle Street, Leicester Fields, London; his posthumous sale together with its pendant, Christie’s, 27 March 1790 (lot 90 or 91, sold for 135 and 145 guineas respectively); probably sold with its pendant by the mortgagees of Charles Alexandre de Calonne (1734–1802), formerly ‘Prime Minister’ of France, London, Skinner & Dyke, 28 March 1795 (lot 86, 520 guineas to Bryan); sold to Coxe by 7 June 1795 for about £700; probably sale of Richard Troward of Pall Mall, London, Phillips, 18 April 1807 (lot 8, 1000 guineas); posthumous sale of Walsh Porter (d. 1809) of Argyle Street, London, Christie’s, 14 April 1810 (lot 44, 900 guineas(?) to Buchanan(?)); bought by William Wells (1768–1847) of Redleaf Park, near Penshurst, Kent, from Buchanan for £1000 by 27 April 1810; sale of the executors of William Wells deceased, Christie & Manson, 12–13 May 1848 (lot 122, £2100 to Farrer, presumably on behalf of Lord Overstone); exhibited in 1851 as owned by Lord Overstone; noted by Waagen in Lord Overstone’s collection at 2 Carlton Gardens, London; by inheritance in 1883 to Harriet Sarah, Lady Wantage (d. 1920), of Lockinge, near Wantage, Berks, and thence to A.T. Loyd; recorded at Lockinge in 1905, and on the north wall of the drawing room of Lockinge House in 1928; on A.T. Loyd’s death in 1944 removed from Lockinge House to Betterton House nearby; on long-term loan to the National Gallery from 1974; purchased in 1981 from the trustees of Thomas Loyd through Thomas Agnew & Sons Ltd with help from the NHMF and the NACF.

Additional information

Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Humphrey Wine, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Seventeenth Century French Paintings’, London 2001; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.

Exhibition history

2011

Claude Lorrain: The Enchanted Landscape

The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology

6 October 2011 - 8 January 2012
2012

Turner Inspired: In the Light of Claude

The National Gallery (London)

14 March 2012 - 5 June 2012

Bibliography

1730

L. Pascoli, Le vite de' pittori, scultori et architetti moderni, Rome 1730
1745

A.-J. Dézallier d'Argenville, Abrégé de la vie des plus fameux peintres, Paris 1745
1824

W. Buchanan, Memoirs of Painting: With a Chronological History of the Importation of Pictures by the Great Masters into England Since the French Revolution, London 1824
1830

J. Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters: In Which is Included a Short Biographical Notice of the Artists, with a Copious Description of Their Principal Pictures […], vol. 2, London 1830
1845

F. Baldinucci, Notizie dei professori del disegno da Cimabue in qua, ed. F. Ranalli, 5 vols, Florence 1845
1854

G.F. Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain: Being and Account of the Chief Collections of Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, Illuminated Mss. […], vol. 2, trans. E. Eastlake, London 1854
1857

G.F. Waagen, Treasures of Art in Great Britain: Being and Account of the Chief Collections of Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, Illuminated Mss. […], translated from German by Elizabeth Eastlake, 3 vols, London 1857, vol. 3
1884

Mme Pattison, Claude Lorrain, sa vie et ses oeuvres, Paris 1884
1892

A.H. Palmer, The Life and Letters of Samuel Palmer, Painter and Etcher, London 1892
1903

J. Ruskin, Modern Painters, eds E.T. Cook and A. Wedderburn, The Works of John Ruskin, 39 vols, London 1903
1958

M. Röthlisberger, 'Les pendants dans l'œuvre de Claude Lorrain', Gazette des beaux-arts, LI, 1958
1960

M. Röthlisberger, 'The Subjects of Claude Lorrain's Paintings', Gazette des beaux-arts, LV, 1960, pp. 209-24
1961

M. Röthlisberger, Claude Lorrain: The Paintings, London 1961
1962

E.K. Waterhouse, 'The Paintings of Claude Lorrain', The Burlington Magazine, CIV/714, 1962
1967

I. Jack, Keats and the Mirror of Art, Oxford 1967
1967

L. Parris, The Loyd Collection of Paintings and Drawings, London 1967
1969

C. Pace, 'Claude the Enchanted: Interpretations of Claude in England in the Earlier Nineteenth Century', The Burlington Magazine, CXLI/1161, 1969, pp. 733-40
1969

M. Kitson, The Art of Claude Lorrain (exh. cat. Laing Art Gallery, 27 September - 26 October 1969), London 1969
1975

M. Röthlisberger, L'opera completa di Claude Lorrain, Milan 1975
1978

M. Kitson, Claude Lorrain: Liber Veritatis, London 1978
1982

National Gallery, The National Gallery Report: January 1980 - December 1981, London 1982
1982

D. Sutton, 'Aspects of British Collecting, II.VI: Cross-Currents in Taste', Apollo, CXVI/250, 1982, pp. 373-89
1982

H.D. Russell, Claude Lorrain 1600-1682 (exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 17 October 1982 - 2 February 1983), Washington 1982
1982

M. Wilson, Acquisition in Focus: Claude:The Enchanted Castle (exh. cat. The National Gallery, London, 13 July - 19 September 1982), London 1982
1984

H.D. Russell, 'Claude's Psyche Pendants: London and Cologne: Claude Lorrain 1600-1682', Studies in the History of Art, XIV, 1984, pp. 67-81
1988

M. Levey, '"The Enchanted Castle" by Claude: Subject, Significance and Interpretation', The Burlington Magazine, CXXX/1028, 1988, pp. 812-20
1989

H. Langdon, Claude Lorrain, Oxford 1989
1991

C. Noireau, La Lampe de Psyché, Paris 1991
1992

H. Wine and O. Koester, Fransk Guldalder: Poussin and Claude and French Painting of the Seventeenth Century, (exh. cat. Statens Museum for Kunst, 29 February - 3 May 1992), Copenhagen 1992
1993

J.H. Whitfield, The Englishness of Canaletto, Birmingham 1993
1994

H. Wine, Claude: The Poetic Landscape (exh. cat. The National Gallery, London, 26 January - 10 April 1994), London 1994
1995

S. Rudolph, Niccolò Maria Pallavicini: L'ascesa al tempio della virtù attraverso il mecenatismo, Rome 1995
1996

W. Schade, Claude Lorrain: Gemälde und Zeichnungen, Munich 1996
2001

Wine, Humphrey, National Gallery Catalogues: The Seventeenth Century French Paintings, London 2001
2001

C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001

Frame

This seventeenth-century French frame in the Louis XIII style was acquired with the painting in 1981, in an already-altered state. Constructed from oak wood, the frame is carved and gilded, with a new overlayer of gold. The back edge is finished with a twisted-ribbon design. The main section features acanthus-leaf corners and a repeating pattern of leaves encasing stemmed flowers and double fleur-de-lis, all set against a diapered background. A narrow hollow leads to the carved sight edge, which is adorned with centred husks and corner leaves.

A label on the reverse of the frame provides a link to a previous owner, Thomas Loyd.

About this record

If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.

Images

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