By Kind Permission of a Private Collection
By Kind Permission of a Private Collection
Claude Lorrain, Il Mulino or The Mill (1648) is the popular name for the "Marriage d'Issac avec Rebecca" (the title inscribed on the painting) (Oil (identified) on canvas, 149.2 x 196.9 cm). National Gallery, Number 12. The painting is one of the two Claudes which hang in the National Gallery with two of Turner's responses to this kind of ideal landscape (the second is its pendant, Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba (1648), No.14). Although the original title of the work, Marriage d'Issac avec Rebecca, indicates that the painting has a biblical source (see Genesis 24), Claude's representation elaborates on the Old Testament narrative, which does not include a wedding celebration. As Helen Langdon observes, the biblical title 'has little relevance for the picture, which is a classical rendering of the theme of the country dance' ( Langdon, Claude Lorrain, p.6). She also suggests that the painting recalls Claude's 'idyllic themes of the 1630s... scenes of country dances in sunny woodland glades' ( Langdon, Claude Lorrain, p.93). The 1995 National Gallery Catalogue notes that 'the composition... corresponds with Liber Veritatis drawing no.113' ( Baker and Henry, National Gallery Catalogue, p.126). The painting, along with NG 14, was originally commissioned by Cardinal Camillo Pamphili. However, the scandal of Pamphili's renunciation of orders to marry and his subsequent exile in Frascati, compelled Claude to complete the paintings for another client, the Duc de Bouillon, who was a general in the army under Urban VIII. Pamphili later purchased another version of Il Mulino together with a new pendant, Landscape with a Procession to Delphi (1650).
Claude Gellée (le Lorrain) 1600-82
The Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca 1648
Oil on canvas, 149.2x196.9cm
Further Comments: This work is also known as 'The Mill' as it is a repetition of the 'Il Mulino', (an earlier work by Claude) but with some variations. The original 'Il Mulino' is kept at the Doria Palace, Rome.
Collection: National Gallery, London