THE long-defunct Duchy of Lorraine has a warm place in my affections, as my paternal ancestors came from the village of Malleloy just north of Nancy, its capital. Despite being regularly scrabbled over by more powerful neighbours, France, Burgundy and the Holy Roman Empire, during the 17th century, it produced a number of artists who had a lasting influence on European culture.
In whichever form, the name of Claude Gellée (about 1600–82), otherwise Claude le Lorrain or, in England, simply Claude, has come to stand for the idealised ‘Arcadian’ classical vision that he spread over the real landscapes of central Italy, which percolated through the galleries of Europe as Grand Tourists’ souvenirs.
Claude was born a little south of Nancy, yet spent most of his career in Italy, unlike his older, shorter-lived compatriot Jacques Callot (about 1592–1635). Callot learned to etch during a nineyear stay in Florence, but then returned to live and work in Nancy, where his father had been master of ceremonies at the ducal court. The two artists probably didn’t overlap in Italy, but they shared artistic contacts there and would certainly have known each other when Claude briefly went home to work on frescos with Claude Deruet, an artist whose portrait was drawn by Callot.
Perhaps if Callot had spent more time abroad—his only other travel was a fairly brief visit to Paris—he, too, might have attracted the ‘le Lorrain’ label, especially as his influence was quite as long lived as Claude’s, if of a different sort. Some of his Italian prints were on a fairly large scale and very detailed, whereas his Lorraine works were mostly tiny, but again full of brilliant detail.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
