Claude’s drawings of this type have always been famed for their naturalism. Many of them could well have been executed outside from nature but some of them, however freely drawn, suggest that the artist worked them up in the studio, so careful is the composition. The technique is both innovative and personal, the artist used sepia wash as if it were watercolour, varying its strength of tone, rather than using it as a means to evenly tint an existing drawing.

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