Mill on the Tiber

Provenance

Data published online by Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and formatted at Carnegie Museum of Art:

Commissioned from Claude Gellée [1604–1682], the artist, by Lorette, Italy, ca. 1650 [1]. Probably purchased by Cornelis de Wael [1592–1667] for Don Antonio Ruffo [1610–1678], 1st Principe della Scaletta, Messina, Italy, 1667 until June 16, 1678 [2]; probably by inheritance to Don Antonio Ruffo’s wife, Alfonsina Ruffo [née Gotho, 1625–1689], Messina, Italy, 1678 until 1689 [3]; probably by descent to her son, Don Placido Ruffo [1646–1710], 2nd Principe della Scaletta and 1st Principe della Floresta, Messina, Italy, 1689 until May 5, 1710; probably by descent to his son, Don Antonio Ruffo e La Rocca [ca. 1680–1739], 3rd Principe della Scaletta and 2nd Principe della Floresta, Messina, Italy, 1710 until 1739; probably by descent to his son, Don Calogero Ruffo [1706?–1743], 4th Principe della Scaletta and 3rd Principe della Floresta, Messina, Italy, 1739 until  1743; probably estate of Don Calogero Ruffo, ca. 1743 until 1750 [4]; probably by inheritance to Don Calogero Ruffo’s uncle, Don Giovanni Ruffo e La Rocca [ca. 1684–ca. 1755], 5th Principe della Scaletta, Messina, Italy, 1750 until 1755 or 1756 [5]; possibly by descent to his son, Don Antonio Ruffo [?–1778], 6th Principe della Scaletta, Messina, Italy, 1755 or 1756 until October 15, 1778; possibly by descent to his son, Don Giovanni Ruffo [1751–1808], 7th Principe della Scaletta, Messina, Italy, 1778 until March 11, 1808. Philip Hill, by July 3, 1811 until no later than January 1, 1813 [6]; John Glover [1767–1849], London, England, by January 1, 1813 until at least July 1835 [7]; purchased by George Stanley [ca. 1791–?], London, England, by September 6, 1836 [8]; jointly purchased from by John Smith [1781–1855] and Robert Hume, London, Smith stock book 1822–1852, no. 1071, September 6, 1836 until April 18, 1838 [9]; purchased by William Hornby [1797–1869], Hook, Hampshire, England, April 18, 1838; purchased by John Smith and Sons, London, stockbook 1822–1852, no. 1394, by May 10, 1839 [10]; purchased by Sir Thomas Baring [1772–1848], 2nd Baronet, London, England, May 10, 1839 until April 3, 1848 [11]; purchased by his son, Thomas Baring, M. P. [1799–1873], London, England, 1848 [12]; bequeathed to his nephew, Thomas George Baring [1826–1904], 1st Earl of Northbrook, London, England, November 18, 1873 until November 15, 1904 [13]; by descent to his son, Francis George Baring [1850–1929], 2nd Earl of Northbrook, London, England, 1904 until least 1926 [14]; Colnaghi, London, England, by 1929 or 1930 [13]; Durlacher Brothers, New York, NY, by September 9, 1930 [15]; purchased by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1931.

Notes:

[1]. An inscription on the verso of no. 123 in Claude’s Liber Veritatis, the book of drawings he used to record his painting compositions, indicates that Mill on the Tiber was undertaken for a certain “Signor Lorette.” (John Smith wrongly identifies Claude’s patron as “Signor Piretti” in his 1837 catalogue raisonné, a mistake that was repeated by later scholars. Elsewhere the patron is incorrectly referred to as Perette and Torette.) Nothing is known about Lorette, though Marcel Röthlisberger believes he was a minor patron, given the small size of the picture and the one-off nature of the commission; see Marcel Roethlisberger, Claude Lorrain: The Paintings (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961), 302.

[2]. Extant correspondence between Ruffo and his agents in Rome attests to this purchase; see Claude Lorrain: The Paintings, 303. Cornelis de Wael was a dealer and painter of marine subjects who lived primarily in Genoa (1631–1656) and Rome (1656–1667). He is thought to be the Deveal whom Claude mentions in connection with no. 152 in his Liber Vertitatis; see Marcel Röthlisberger, “A Claude Renamed Gaspard van Eyck,” The Burlington Magazine 101, no. 680 (November 1959): 408, 408n8.

[3]. For her life dates and those of her descendants, see Walter Liedtke, Dutch Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art(New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2007), 654.

[4]. The provenance narrative for a Rembrandt painting that passed by descent through the Ruffo family mentions the estate of Don CalogeroRuffo; see Dutch Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 654.

[5]. According to Röthlisberger, the painting “remained in the [Ruffo] collection, by descent, until at least 1755, possibly until after 1800.” If the former, then Don Giovanni Ruffo, 5th Principe della Scaletta, was likely the last member of the Ruffo family to own Landscape with a Piping Shepherd. If the latter, the painting may have passed subsequently to Don Antonio Ruffo, 6th Principe della Scaletta, and Don Giovanni Ruffo, 7th Principe della Scaletta. See Claude Lorrain: The Paintings, 303.

[6]. The dealer Philip Hill consigned Mill on the Tiber to a Christie’s sale, where it was bought in for 390 guineas; see A Choice and Highly Valuable Assemblage of Exquisite Cabinet Dutch Pictures, Christie, Manson and Woods, London, July 3, 1811, lot 105, View on the Banks of the Tiber.  On January 1, 1813, the English landscape painter Joseph Farington (1747–1821) noted in his diary that John Glover “had lately given 1700 guineas for two pictures painted by Claude.” For this reason, David Hansen proposes that Glover purchased both Mill on the Tiber and Landscape with a Piping Shepherd in late 1812; see Hansen, John Glover and the Colonial Picturesque, exh. cat. (Hobart, Tasmania: Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, 2003), 135. It’s unclear whether Glover purchased them together or separately. Landscape with a Piping Shepherd was likely owned by Charles Kinnaird (1780–1826) in 1812, but the ownership of Mill on the Tiber is less clear: either Hill still owned the picture or he found a private buyer after it failed to sell at auction.

[7]. In 1831, Glover moved from England to Tasmania (then known as Van Diemen’s Land). Prior to his departure, Mill on the Tiber was bought in at his emigration sale of 1830; see Sixty Pictures Painted by John Glover, Esq., and Two Landscapes by Claude, His Property, 21 Old Bond Street, London, April 29, 1830, lot 62, Landscape with a Mill. Glover likely left Landscape with a Piping Shepherd and Mill on the Tiber in the custody of his son-in-law and London agent, John Lord, when he moved to Tasmania. They remained in Lord’s custody until at least July 1835, when the exhibition of Glover’s work (and his two Claudes) at 106 New Bond Street closed. George Stanley probably purchased Mill from Glover, with Lord acting as the intermediary, sometime in 1835 or 1836.

[8]. George Stanley was the auctioneer at Glover’s sale on April 29, 1830. He was 50 years old at the time of the 1841 England census.

[9]. See letter from John Smith, London, to John Mountjoy Smith, Rome, September 6, 1836, in Charles Sebag-Montefiore and Julia I. Armstrong-Totten, A Dynasty of Dealers: John Smith and Successors 1801–1924; A Study of the Art Market in Nineteenth-Century London (London: Roxburghe Club, 2013), no. 231, pp. 219–21. Smith and Hume paid £1840 for Landscape with a Piping Shepherd and Mill on the Tiber. See also Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Records of John Smith and successors, 1812–1892, day book for 1838, p. 93. Robert and Robert Hume was a father-son partnership. Robert Hume senior (d. 1837) founded the family business in 1808 and worked primarily as a carver, gilder and cabinet-maker. His son, also named Robert Hume (life dates unknown), was a picture dealer who maintained a close working relationship with John Smith. See A Dynasty of Dealers, 24, 449.

[10]. John Smith’s two oldest sons, John Mountjoy Smith (1805–1869) and Samuel Mountjoy Smith (1908–1874) joined the family business in 1827 and 1837 respectively. They took over the firm when John Smith retired in 1837. See A Dynasty of Dealers, 14.   

[11]. Baring purchased Mill on the Tiber for £600. See A Dynasty of Dealers, 220n111; and Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Records of John Smith and successors, 1812–1892, day book for 1839, p. 175.

[12]. Sir Thomas Baring’s will stipulated that his collection be sold after his death. Thomas Baring purchased his father’s Italian, Spanish and French pictures when they were put up for sale; see the introduction to A Descriptive Catalogue of the Collection of Pictures Belonging to the Earl of Northbrook (London: Griffith, Farran, Okeden, and Welsh, 1889).

[13]. Thomas Baring bequeathed at least one other painting (School of Antwerp, King Sapor of Persia Humiliating Emperor Valerian, ca. 1515–1525) to his nephew. See European Paintings in the Collection of the Worcester Art Museum (Worcester: Worcester Art Museum, 1974), 154–55. Thomas George Baring was the eldest son of Thomas Baring’s older brother, Francis Thornhill Baring (1796–1866), 1st Baron Northbrook. He succeeded his father in 1866 as the 2nd Baron Northbrook and became 1st Earl of Northbrook in 1876; see A Dynasty of Dealers, 65.

[14]. See Louis Hourticq et al., Le Paysage Français de Poussin à Corot à l’Exposition du Petit Palais (Mai–Juin 1925), exh. cat. (Paris: Éditions de la Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1926), 115. The painting likely remained in Francis George Baring’s collection until his death on April 12, 1929. 

[15]. Per Claude Lorrain: The Paintings, 304.

[16]. See letter from Harold Woodbury Parsons to Jesse Clyde Nichols, Trustee for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, September 9, 1930, NAMA curatorial files.

 

Data as published online by Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

Commissioned by Lorette, Italy, ca. 1650 [1];

Probably purchased by Cornelis de Wael (1592–1667) for Don Antonio Ruffo (1610–1678), 1st Principe della Scaletta, Messina, Italy, December 1663– June 16, 1678 [2];

Probably by inheritance to his wife, Alfonsina Ruffo (née Gotho, 1625–1689), Messina, Italy, 1678–1689 [3]; 

Probably by descent to her son, Don Placido Ruffo (1646–1710), 2nd Principe della Scaletta and 1st Principe della Floresta, Messina, Italy, 1689–May 5, 1710;

Probably by descent to his son, Don Antonio Ruffo e La Rocca (ca. 1680–1739), 3rd Principe della Scaletta and 2nd Principe della Floresta, Messina, Italy, 1710–1739;

Probably by descent to his son, Don Calogero Ruffo (ca. 1706–1743), 4th Principe della Scaletta and 3rd Principe della Floresta, Messina, Italy, 1739–1743;

Probably estate of Don Calogero Ruffo, ca. 1743–1750 [4];

Probably by inheritance to his uncle, Don Giovanni Ruffo e La Rocca (ca. 1684–ca. 1755/56), 5th Principe della Scaletta, Messina, Italy, 1750–1755/56 [5];

Possibly by descent to his son, Don Antonio Ruffo (d. 1778), 6th Principe della Scaletta, Messina, Italy, 1755/56–October 15, 1778;

Possibly by descent to his son, Don Giovanni Ruffo (1751–1808), 7th Principe della Scaletta, Messina, Italy, 1778–March 11, 1808;

With Philip Hill, by July 3, 1811–no later than January 1, 1813 [6];

John Glover (1767–1849), London, by January 1, 1813–at least July 1835 [7];

Purchased from Glover by George Stanley (b. ca. 1791), London, by September 6, 1836 [8];

Jointly purchased from Stanley by John Smith (1781–1855) and Robert Hume, London, Smith stock book 1822–1852, no. 1071, September 6, 1836–April 18, 1838 [9];

Purchased from Smith and Hume by William Hornby (1797–1869), Hook, Hampshire, England, April 18, 1838;

Bought back from Hornby by John Smith and Sons, London, stockbook 1822–1852, no. 1394, by May 10, 1839 [10];

Purchased from John Smith and Sons by Sir Thomas Baring (1772–1848), 2nd Baronet, London, May 10, 1839–April 3, 1848 [11];

Purchased by his son, Thomas Baring (1799–1873), London, 1848–November 18, 1873 [12];

By descent to his nephew, Thomas George Baring (1826–1904), 1st Earl of Northbrook, London, 1873–November 15, 1904 [13];

By descent to his son, Francis George Baring (1850–1929), 2nd Earl of Northbrook, London, 1904–at least 1926 [14];

With Colnaghi, London, by 1929/30 [15]; 

With Durlacher Brothers, New York, by September 9, 1930 [16];

Purchased from Durlacher Brothers by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1931.

NOTES:

[1] An inscription on the verso of no. 123 in Claude’s Liber Veritatis, the book of drawings he used to record his painting compositions, indicates that Mill on the Tiber was undertaken for a certain “Signor Lorette.” (John Smith wrongly identifies Claude’s patron as “Signor Piretti” in his 1837 catalogue raisonné, a mistake that was repeated by later scholars. Elsewhere the patron is incorrectly referred to as Perette and Torette.) Nothing is known about Lorette, though Marcel Röthlisberger believes he was a minor patron, given the small size of the picture and the one-off nature of the commission; see Marcel Roethlisberger, Claude Lorrain: The Paintings (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961), 302. 

[2] Extant correspondence between Ruffo and his agents in Rome attests to this purchase; see Claude Lorrain: The Paintings, 303. Cornelis de Wael was a dealer and painter of marine subjects who lived primarily in Genoa (1631–1656) and Rome (1656–1667). He is thought to be the Deveal whom Claude mentions in connection with no. 152 in his Liber Vertitatis; see Marcel Röthlisberger, “A Claude Renamed Gaspard van Eyck,” The Burlington Magazine 101, no. 680 (November 1959): 408, 408n8.

[3] For her life dates and those of her descendants, see Walter Liedtke, Dutch Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2007), 654.

[4] The provenance narrative for a Rembrandt painting that passed by descent through the Ruffo family mentions the estate of Don Calogero Ruffo; see Dutch Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 654.

[5] According to Röthlisberger, the painting “remained in the [Ruffo] collection, by descent, until at least 1755, possibly until after 1800.” If the former, then Don Giovanni Ruffo, 5th Principe della Scaletta, was likely the last member of the Ruffo family to own Landscape with a Piping Shepherd. If the latter, the painting may have passed subsequently to Don Antonio Ruffo, 6th Principe della Scaletta, and Don Giovanni Ruffo, 7th Principe della Scaletta. See Claude Lorrain: The Paintings, 303.

[6] The dealer Philip Hill consigned Mill on the Tiber to a Christie’s sale, where it was bought in for 390 guineas; see A Choice and Highly Valuable Assemblage of Exquisite Cabinet Dutch Pictures, Christie, Manson and Woods, London, July 3, 1811, lot 105, View on the Banks of the Tiber. On January 1, 1813, the English landscape painter Joseph Farington (1747–1821) noted in his diary that John Glover “had lately given 1700 guineas for two pictures painted by Claude.” For this reason, David Hansen proposes that Glover purchased both Mill on the Tiber and Landscape with a Piping Shepherd in late 1812; see Hansen, John Glover and the Colonial Picturesque, exh. cat. (Hobart, Tasmania: Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, 2003), 135. It’s unclear whether Glover purchased them together or separately. Landscape with a Piping Shepherd was likely owned by Charles Kinnaird (1780–1826) in 1812, but the ownership of Mill on the Tiber is less clear: either Hill still owned the picture or he found a private buyer after it failed to sell at auction.

[7] In 1831, Glover moved from England to Tasmania (then known as Van Diemen’s Land). Prior to his departure, Mill on the Tiber was bought in at his emigration sale of 1830; see Sixty Pictures Painted by John Glover, Esq., and Two Landscapes by Claude, His Property, 21 Old Bond Street, London, April 29, 1830, lot 62, Landscape with a Mill. Glover likely left Landscape with a Piping Shepherd and Mill on the Tiberin the custody of his son-in-law and London agent, John Lord, when he moved to Tasmania. They remained in Lord’s custody until at least July 1835, when the exhibition of Glover’s work (and his two Claudes) at 106 New Bond Street closed. George Stanley probably purchased Mill from Glover, with Lord acting as the intermediary, sometime in 1835 or 1836.

[8] George Stanley was the auctioneer at Glover’s sale on April 29, 1830. He was 50 years old at the time of the 1841 England census.

[9] See letter from John Smith, London, to John Mountjoy Smith, Rome, September 6, 1836, in Charles Sebag-Montefiore and Julia I. Armstrong-Totten, A Dynasty of Dealers: John Smith and Successors 1801–1924; A Study of the Art Market in Nineteenth-Century London (London: Roxburghe Club, 2013), no. 231, pp. 219–21. Smith and Hume paid £1840 for Landscape with a Piping Shepherd and Mill on the Tiber. See also Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Records of John Smith and successors, 1812–1892, day book for 1838, p. 93. Robert and Robert Hume was a father-son partnership. Robert Hume senior (d. 1837) founded the family business in 1808 and worked primarily as a carver, gilder and cabinet-maker. His son, also named Robert Hume (life dates unknown), was a picture dealer who maintained a close working relationship with John Smith. See A Dynasty of Dealers, 24, 449.

[10] John Smith’s two oldest sons, John Mountjoy Smith (1805–1869) and Samuel Mountjoy Smith (1908–1874) joined the family business in 1827 and 1837 respectively. They took over the firm when John Smith retired in 1837. See A Dynasty of Dealers, 14.    

[11] Baring purchased Mill on the Tiber for £600. See A Dynasty of Dealers, 220n111; and Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, Records of John Smith and successors, 1812–1892, day book for 1839, p. 175.

[12] Sir Thomas Baring’s will stipulated that his collection be sold after his death. Thomas Baring purchased his father’s Italian, Spanish and French pictures when they were put up for sale; see the introduction to A Descriptive Catalogue of the Collection of Pictures Belonging to the Earl of Northbrook (London: Griffith, Farran, Okeden, and Welsh, 1889).

[13] Thomas Baring bequeathed at least one other painting (School of Antwerp, King Sapor of Persia Humiliating Emperor Valerian, ca. 1515–1525) to his nephew. See European Paintings in the Collection of the Worcester Art Museum (Worcester: Worcester Art Museum, 1974), 154–55. Thomas George Baring was the eldest son of Thomas Baring’s older brother, Francis Thornhill Baring (1796–1866), 1st Baron Northbrook. He succeeded his father in 1866 as the 2nd Baron Northbrook and became 1st Earl of Northbrook in 1876; see A Dynasty of Dealers, 65.

[14] See Louis Hourticq et al., Le Paysage Français de Poussin à Corot à l’Exposition du Petit Palais (Mai–Juin 1925), exh. cat. (Paris: Éditions de la Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1926), 115. The painting likely remained in Francis George Baring’s collection until his death on April 12, 1929.  

[15] Per Claude Lorrain: The Paintings, 304.

[16] See letter from Harold Woodbury Parsons to Jesse Clyde Nichols, Trustee for the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, September 9, 1930, NAMA curatorial files.