During the 1620s, Déruet was the principal painter to the duchy of Lorraine, an important artistic center in present-day eastern France. Initially trained by Jacques Bellange, another Lorraine court painter, Déruet took a trip to Rome in the 1610s which was pivotal in exposing him to works by the painter and engraver Antonio Tempesta. Like a number of Northern European artists of his generation, Déruet followed Tempesta’s lead creating complex compositions of classically inspired hunt and battle subjects such as these.
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Title:Departure of the Amazons
Artist:Claude Déruet (French, Nancy ca. 1588–1660 Nancy)
Date:1620s
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:20 x 26 in. (50.8 x 66 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Bequest of Harry G. Sperling, 1971
Object Number:1976.100.6
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 The Met]
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.
Nancy. Musée des Beaux-Arts. "L'art en Lorraine au temps de Jacques Callot," June 13–September 14, 1992, no. 130.
Pierre Rosenberg. France in the Golden Age: Seventeenth-century French Paintings in American Collections. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 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], suggests that this painting was executed upon Deruet's return from Italy in 1620.
Michael Kitson inClaude to Corot: The Development of Landscape Painting in France. Exh. cat., Colnaghi. New York, 1990, pp. 12–13, ill.
Jean-Claude Boyer inL'art en Lorraine au temps de Jacques Callot. Exh. cat., Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nancy. Paris, 1992, pp. 337, 342, no. 130, ill. p. 340 (color), dates it to the 1620s.
Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 358, ill.
Michiel C. Plomp inClaude Lorrain. Exh. cat., Teylers Museum, Haarlem. Zwolle, The Netherlands, 2011, pp. 38, 49 n. 39, fig. 19 (color).
This painting and its pendant, Triumph of the Amazons (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).
Claude Lorrain (Claude Gellée) (French, Chamagne 1604/5?–1682 Rome)
ca. 1643
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