This canvas and its pendant (opposite) date to the 1620s, when Deruet was the chief painter in the duchy of Lorraine. A specialist in battle and hunting scenes after the antique, he had trained with Jacques Bellange and in Rome with Agostine Tassi.

Forthcoming

Inscription: Signed (bottom left): [D]ERV[ET]

[Galerie Marcus, Paris, after 1945–68; sold for $4,000 to Kleinberger]; [Kleinberger, New York, 1968–75; bequeathed by Harry G. Sperling, last surviving partner of firm, to MMA]

Paris. Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais. "La Peinture française du XVIIe siècle dans les collections américaines," January 29–April 26, 1982, no. 25.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "France in the Golden Age: Seventeenth-century French Paintings in American Collections," May 26–August 22, 1982, no. 25.

Art Institute of Chicago. "France in the Golden Age: Seventeenth-century French Paintings in American Collections," September 18–November 28, 1982, no. 25.

Pierre Rosenberg. France in the Golden Age: Seventeenth-century French Paintings in American Collections. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 1982, pp. 124, 242–43, 351, no. 25, ill. pp. 125, 243 [French ed., La peinture française du XVIIe siècle dans les collections américaines, Paris, 1982], suggests that this painting was executed upon Deruet's return from Italy in 1620.

Michael Kitson in Claude to Corot: The Development of Landscape Painting in France. Exh. cat., Colnaghi. New York, 1990, pp. 12–13, ill.

Michiel C. Plomp in Claude Lorrain. Exh. cat., Teylers Museum, Haarlem. Zwolle, The Netherlands, 2011, pp. 38, 49 n. 39, fig. 19 (color).

This painting and its pendant, "Battle of Amazons and Greeks" (1976.100.7), form a set with two pictures in the museum at La Fère. These four works are variants of another set of four pictures by Deruet at Strasbourg, with the compositions in our battle scenes and those at La Fère including more figure groups. Germain Viatte compares the La Fère paintings with a Diana by Deruet at Versailles that can be dated 1627 [see G. Viatte, "Quatre tableaux de Claude Deruet," La Revue du Louvre, nos. 4/5, 1964, pp. 221–26].

The inventory of Deruet's belongings after his death included a number of paintings with Amazon subjects [see Albert Jacquot, Notes sur Claude Deruet, Paris, 1894].