The Cowherd
Medium
Etching; third state of six (Mannocci)
Dimensions
Sheet: 5 1/2 x 8 1/4 in. (14 x 21 cm) Plate: 5 1/8 x 7 7/8 in. (13 x 20 cm)
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1937
Accession Number
37.3.14
Tags
Art Historical Context
Claude Lorrain's *The Cowherd* (1636) is a delicate etching that captures the artist's mastery of pastoral landscapes, evoking the serene beauty of the Roman countryside he so admired. Created in the third state of six, as cataloged by Mannocci, print measures a modest 5 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches and exemplifies Lorrain's early experimentation with etching—a technique where acid etches intricate lines into a copper plate, allowing for subtle tonal variations and atmospheric depth. Working in 17th-century France but deeply influenced by his time in Italy, Lorrain pioneered the classical landscape genr...
About the Artist
Claude Lorrain (Claude Gellée) · 1604–1682
Claude Gellée was born around 1600 in the village of Chamagne in the Duchy of Lorraine, from which he would take the professional name by which history knows him: Claude Lorrain. Orphaned young, he traveled south to Rome as a teenager, eventually finding his way into the Naples workshop of Goffredo Wals before apprenticing with the Roman landscapist and fresco painter Agostino Tassi around 1622. F...