58. A STUDY OF TREES.
Claude (French: 1600-1682). See 2.
This picture, when in Sir George Beaumont's collection at Coleorton, was copied by Constable and called by him "The Little Grove." In 1823 Constable wrote to a friend, "I have likewise begun 'The Little Grove' by Claude; a noonday scene 'which warms and cheers, but which does not inflame or irritate.' Through the depths of the trees are seen a waterfall and a ruined temple, and a solitary shepherd is piping to some goats and sheep:—
'In closing shades and where the current strays,
Pipes the lone shepherd to his feeding flocks.'"
(Leslie's Life of Constable, 1845, p. 119.)