Claude Lorrain’s etching, “Harbour with Rising Sun”, 1635

Claude Lorrain (aka Claude Gellée; Le Lorrain; Claudio di Lorena) (1600–1682)

“Harbour with Rising Sun” (aka “Le Soleil Levant”), 1635, printed from the original plate and published in 1816 by J. McCreery in the “200 Etchings” folio. This impression is from the Schulze edition of 1816.

Etching on wove paper, trimmed with a small margin around the image borderline and with a section of an engraving from the 1784 Paris edition of “Stirpes Novae” shown verso (documented as a feature of the McCreery impressions; see Mannocci [1988] p. 28).

Size: (sheet) 13.1 x 19.9 cm; (image borderline) 12.4 x 19.4 cm.

Inscribed in plate: (on end of plank in foreground) “CLA”; (partially decipherable below image borderline at right) “Cl[aud]ius. Cla[u]diu[s] in[v.] et F. Romae - sup Licentia.”

State viii (of viii) as published in the 1816 Schulze edition with the distant mountains and rays of the sun strengthened.

Mannocci 15 viii (Lino Mannocci 1988, “The Etchings of Claude Lorrain”, New Haven, Yale University Press, pp. 113–121, cat. no. 15, eighth state); Blum 10; Robert-Dumesnil 15; Russell 23 (H. Diane Russell 1982, “Claude Lorrain 1600–1682), Washington, National Gallery of Art, p. 341, cat. no. 23).

The British Museum offers the following description of this print: “Harbour scene with rising sun; triumphal arch on the left 1635 Etching” (https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1875-0508-167 ).

Regarding the plate for this etching (and the others printed by McCreery), Andrew Brink (2013) in “Ink and Light: The Influence of Claude Lorrain’s Etching on England” (McGill Queen’s University Press) offers the following insight: “The plates of Claude’s etchings disappeared without trace as mysteriously as they had first come to London” (p. 74). From my very unreliable memory, I recall being told in a chat with a “knowledgeable friend” who was told by another “knowledgeable friend” that the plates were discovered as ballast on a ship, but this information may be far from the truth.

Diane Russell (1982) offers the following insights about this print: “The print records, in reverse, a painting now in the Hermitage, Leningrad [….] This etching makes an interesting comparison, and companion to […] “The Tempest”, dated 1630, and indeed the figures in the boats and laboring on the shore are quite similar. In the earlier work, the moon strikes and articulates a turbulent sea, while here the rising sun seems to dispel the clouds and calm the sea. Each image is thus an exploration in etching of different time so day and climatic condition…” (pp.341–42).

Condition: a richly inked and well-printed impression, trimmed around the platemark. Beyond a few pale stains, the sheet is in an excellent condition with no tears, folds, holes or abrasions. Note that the verso shows a section of an engraving from the 1784 Paris edition of “Stirpes Novae” (documented as a feature of the McCreery impressions).

I am selling this amazingly strong impression of a very beautiful etching by Claude Lorrain, for the total cost of AU$398 (currently US$261.77/EUR241.09/GBP206.11 at the time of this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world, but not (of course) any import duties/taxes imposed by some countries.

If you are interested in purchasing this superb etching by one of the most famous of all landscape artists, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

This print has been sold