A Wooded Landscape with Distant Buildings, 1640-50, by Claude Lorrain, Black chalk, brown wash, black chalk framing lines, 20.7 x 28.3 cm. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

WILLIAMSTOWN, MA.- The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute has acquired sixteen drawings by the great seventeenth-century French landscape artist Claude Lorrain. The acquisition makes the Clark holder of one of the most important collections of Claude drawings outside of Europe. The drawings, which will be on view beginning January 19, 2008, join two oil paintings and several etchings by Claude already in the Clark's collection.

"The acquisition of these drawings continues the Clark's tradition of acquiring collections that represent the depth of an individual artist or period," said Richard Rand, senior curator at the Clark. "Claude is the fountainhead of the European and American landscape tradition, whose legacy is apparent everywhere in the Clark's collection and in the pastoral setting of our campus."

The sixteen drawings represent the full breadth of Claude's draftsmanship, including works made as early as 1630 and as late as 1667. The collection features nature studies of Rome and Tivoli and other identifiable sites, generalized landscape views, and studio drawings with historical subjects that were made as studies for paintings, as well as independent works of art. Claude's brilliant technique and innovative combination of materials are fully represented as well: there are pen-and-ink drawings combined with wash and white gouache, black and red chalk drawings, and drawings on cream paper and blue paper. Many of the sheets are inscribed by Claude and several are dated.

The drawings have a prestigious legacy, thirteen of them having originated from an album assembled by Claude's heirs and sold to Queen Christina of Sweden and subsequently belonging to Italian Prince Livio Odescalchi, Georges Wildenstein, and Norton Simon. They were assembled in the 1980s by New York collector Peter Sharp, who acquired three more, including one from the collection of Lord Kenneth Clark, the famous art historian and former director of the National Gallery in London. The Clark acquired the drawings from the heirs of Peter Sharp.

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