CLAUDE LORRAIN
(b. 1604, Chamagne, d. 1682, Roma)

Marine with the Trojans Burning their Boats

1643
Oil on canvas, 105 x 152 cm
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Claude Gellée, known as Lorrain, was born near Nancy in France. From 1613, however, he is recorded in Rome, where he spent most of his career, which he dedicated to the painting of landscapes. Although landscapes were starting to assume some autonomy a full century earlier, in the works of the Venetian school and above all Giorgione, Lorrain nevertheless represents one of Italy's earliest and most important exponents of landscape painting as an independent genre. Starting from the classicist tradition, he elaborated an idealized landscape which would give rise to a whole school and which can be considered close to the art of Nicolas Poussin.

This painting is included in Liber Veritatis (LV 71).