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The Trojan Women Setting Fire to Their Fleet

ca. 1643
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 623

Claude Lorrain’s luminous skies and atmospheric effects are milestones in European landscape painting. Like his contemporary Nicolas Poussin, Claude viewed landscape through a classical lens: he represented the women of Troy setting fire to their ships to end years of wandering after their city was seized by the Greeks. Distant clouds and rain presage the storm sent by Jupiter at Aeneas’s request to quench the blaze. The subject must have particularly appealed to the man who commissioned it. Cardinal Girolamo Farnese was a prelate who returned to Rome in 1643 after years of itinerant service combating Protestantism on the pope’s behalf in present-day Switzerland.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: The Trojan Women Setting Fire to Their Fleet
  • Artist: Claude Lorrain (Claude Gellée) (French, Chamagne 1604/5?–1682 Rome)
  • Date: ca. 1643
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: 41 3/8 x 59 7/8 in. (105.1 x 152.1 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: Fletcher Fund, 1955
  • Object Number: 55.119
  • Curatorial Department: European Paintings

Audio

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5107. The Trojan Women Setting Fire to Their Fleet

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More Artwork

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Perseus and the Origin of Coral, Claude Lorrain (Claude Gellée) French, Black chalk, sepia and black ink, sepia and gray wash heightened with white
Perseus and the Origin of Coral
Claude Lorrain (Claude Gellée)
ca. 1671
Guitar, Jean-Baptiste Voboam French, Spruce, tortoiseshell, mother-of-pearl, ivory, ebony, French
Guitar
attributed to Jean-Baptiste Voboam
1697
Self-Portrait with Two Pupils, Marie Gabrielle Capet (1761–1818) and Marie Marguerite Carraux de Rosemond (1765–1788), Adélaïde Labille-Guiard French, Oil on canvas
Self-Portrait with Two Pupils, Marie Gabrielle Capet (1761–1818) and Marie Marguerite Carraux de Rosemond (1765–1788)
Adélaïde Labille-Guiard
1785
The Abduction of the Sabine Women, Nicolas Poussin French, Oil on canvas
The Abduction of the Sabine Women
Nicolas Poussin
probably 1633–34
Queen Esther Approaching the Palace of Ahasuerus, Claude Lorrain (Claude Gellée) French, Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, heightened with white, over black chalk
Queen Esther Approaching the Palace of Ahasuerus
Claude Lorrain (Claude Gellée)
1658

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