Landscape with Saint Mary of Cervelló

Philip IV was building the Buen Retiro on the edge of Madrid in the 1630s and needed pictures for it fast. A large batch of landscapes was ordered from painters working in Rome, and Claude Lorrain, then in his thirties, supplied several. This is one of them, painted around 1637. The valley opens between dark trees towards mountains in the first light of morning, and the only person in it is a kneeling figure in the pale habit of the Mercedarians, lit while everything around her stays in shadow. The Prado is not convinced she is who the title says. Saint Mary of Cervello never lived as a hermit, and the museum's own catalogue proposes a different Mercedarian holy woman, while keeping the old title in its records. The canvas is nearly two and a half metres wide, and she is a small shape low on the left of it.