CLAUDE LORRAIN or CLAUDE GELLEE (1600 1682), French landscape-painter, was born at Chamagne in Lor raine. At the age of 12 he went to live at Freiburg in Baden with an elder brother. He afterwards went to Rome where he lived with the landscape painter, Augustin Tassi. In 1625 he travelled to Venice and through Tirol to his native country. Claude De Ruet, painter to the duke of Lorraine, kept him as assistant for a year; and he painted at Nancy the ceiling of the Carmelite church. In 1627 he returned to Rome where he earned the pro tection of Pope Urban VIII., and from about 1637 he rapidly rose into celebrity. Claude's landscapes are composed according to the classical traditions of the Italian school. He bathed his scenes in light and atmosphere. His figures, however, are very indifferent and he usually engaged other artists to paint them for him. In order to avoid a repetition of the same subject, and also to detect the very numerous spurious copies of his works, he made tinted outline drawings (in six paper books which he named Libri di Verita) of most of his pictures, with the name of the purchaser. This valuable work (now belonging to the duke of Devonshire) has been engraved and published. Claude died in Rome at the age of 82, on Nov. 21, 1682.
Many choice specimens of his genius may be seen in the National Gallery, London, in the Louvre, at the Doria palace in Rome and at private collections in Britain. The British Museum, the Louvre, and the Albertina contain fine collections of pen and ink drawings. Claude's engravings are much sought after.
See Sandrart, Academia Artis Pictoriae (1683) ; Baldinucci, Notizie dei professori del disegno (5844) ; Victor Cousin, Sur Claude Gelee (1853) ; M. F. Sweetser, Claude Lorrain (1878) ; Lady Dilke, Claude Lorrain (1884).