Seaport with the Embarkation of Saint Ursula

Claude did something painters were usually told not to do. He set the sun itself near the middle of the picture and painted everything looking straight into its light, a low morning sun laying a gold path across the harbour water while the ships wait to sail. The story is Saint Ursula, the British princess who, legend said, set off on a pilgrimage with a company of maidens, and you can find her on the steps in yellow, holding a flag with a red cross. But Claude cared most about the hour and the light. He made it in 1641 in Rome for Fausto Poli, a churchman about to be made a cardinal, and painted the Barberini family's bees onto the blue flags of the departing fleet.