Havengezicht 1752

Thomas Major created this engraving of a harbor scene after a painting by Claude Lorrain. We can see it was dedicated to Colonel Yorke, the British minister to The Hague, and sold from a print shop in London. By the 1700s, a market had developed for reproductions of famous paintings. Looking closely, we notice the architecture is classical, seemingly Italian. In fact, Claude Lorrain was known for pastoral landscapes that idealize nature and evoke a lost classical past. England, like other European nations, was building institutions like museums that housed and displayed classical art. This engraving offered the expanding middle class access to high culture that was previously restricted to the aristocracy. Historical archives can tell us much more about the social status of those who bought and sold such images and the institutions that promoted them. It is in this intersection between art, commerce, and social life that art history finds its meaning.