CLAUDE. LORRAINE, klod lor-raii, or LORRAIN, so-called, French landscape painter and etcher: b. Chamagne in Lorraine, France, 1600; d. Rome, 25 Nov. 1682. His real name was CLAUDE GELfE: he was called Lorraine from the province in which he was born. When 12 years old it is said he went to live with his brother, an engraver in wood, at Freiburg. Afterward a relation of his took him to Rome, where the sight of some paintings of the Flem ish painter, Godfrey Waels, who was then living in Italy, enchanted him so much that he traveled to Naples to study with the artist. Returning to Rome after two 'years, he was employed by the landscape-painter Agostino Tassi, as a color-grinder and otherwise. He is next said to have studied the paintings of Giorgione and Titian, whereby his coloring and chiaroscuro were greatly improved. After making a jour ney into his native country, and residing for some time at Nancy, he settled in 1627 in Rome. Here he attracted the notice of Cardinal Bentivoglio, and was introduced by him to Pope Urban VIII, who rave him orders for four paintings. His position being now as sured, he had many other eminent patrons, and was enabled to live much at his ease. The principal galleries of England, France, Spain, Russia and Germany are adorned with his pro ductions. The public and private galleries of England are richest in these works, a number being in the National Gallery, others at Dul wich, at Windsor Castle and elsewhere.
Claude possessed the greatest power of inven tion, by which he gave an inexhaustible variety to his paintings, united with an ardent and persevering study of nature. The truth with which he portrays the effect of the sun in every part of the day, soft breezes playing through the tops of the trees, and all the deli cate beauties of nature, is surprising; and all his rivals fell far short of equaling the dewy humidity which he threw over dark, shadowy places. His figures are poor, and he used to say --((I sell my landscapes, and give my figures into the bargain.° In a great number of his paintings the figures are the work of other artists. Claude most frequently chooses views in which the eye loses itself in agreeable pros pects, without being able to define their limits. He often introduces grand architectural struc tures, and makes his landscapes the scenes of mythological and historical events. Claude himself made a collection of some 200 drawings of his pictures. This record, now in the collec tion of the Duke of Devonshire, is 1cnown as the (Liber Veritatis.) Consult DiIke, Lady E. F., 'Claude Lorrain, sa vie et ses ceuvres) (Paris 1884) ; Dullea, 'Claude Gelee, le Lorrain) (London 1887) ; Grahame, G., 'Claude Lorrain, Painter and Etcher) (London 1895) ; Earlom, R., (Liber Veritatis) (London 1819).