Room 36

Follow the light towards the distance in Claude’s Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba. People, ships and architecture give shape to a view whose brightness is carefully controlled. Claude painted in Rome, building landscapes that later painters studied closely. Turner admired him enough to leave two paintings to the nation on condition that they hang beside two particular Claudes. Their display here carries out that wish. Compare the use of sunlight and the arrangement of buildings and water across the paintings. The pairing lets you see a later artist choosing how his own work should be judged alongside an earlier painter he valued.