Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba

The painting Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba hangs in room 15 of The National Gallery in London. It was painted in 1648 by Claude Gellee along with the Landscape with the Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca. These two paintings, made to hang together, were commissioned by the Duc de Bouillon. They now hang with two of JMW Turner's paintings, Dido building Carthage and Sun Rising through Vapour, between them as requested in Turner's will. It is believed that Turner wanted his work directly compared to Claude's in the museum.
This partially imaginary scene Claude painted was from a story in the Bible of the Queen of Sheba meeting with King Solomon in Jerusalem. It was customary to depict their meeting at the time; so it was odd for Claude to paint her departure instead.
In this painting Claude uses linear perspective and also creates a fore, various mid, and back grounds. On each level he keeps a vertical axis, balancing out the left and right sides creating a push and pull, luring the viewer through and back around again encouraging a sense of unity. Claude also seems to hint that he may have had his own idea about a time for the Queen of Sheba to exist in by giving the front left column an Etruscan capital. Yet it is also grown over with foliage. This perhaps was a secret that the 17th century painter kept to himself. Claude certainly mastered combining imagined landscapes with already known scenarios.

Citation:
The National Gallery. www.nationalgallery.org.uk. The National Gallery, n/a. Web. 20 June 2013.