the opposite direction. The figures Although virtually every painting by Claude contains figures, even if only a shepherd, their weakness has always been recognised, not least by Claude himself; according to his biographer Filippo Baldinucci he joked that he charged for his landscapes, but gave the figures for free. According to his other contemporary biographer Joachim von Sandrart he had made considerable efforts to improve them, but without success; certainly there are numerous studies, typically for groups of figures, among his drawings. In Claude's last years his figures tend to become ever more elongated, a process taken to an extreme in this painting, of which even its owner says "The hunters are impossibly elongated – Ascanius, in particular, is absurdly top-heavy". Its pendant has figures almost as extreme. With the mid-20th century fashion for medical diagnosis through art, it was suggested that Claude had developed an optical condition producing such effects, but this has been rejected by doctors and critics alike. Critical appreciation Despite the figures, the painting has been one of the most admired of Claude's works. For Anthony Blunt, it "reveals all the qualities of the artist's last phase ... The range of colour is reduced to its utmost limits: silvery green trees, pale grey-blue sky, grey architecture, and neutral-coloured dresses for the figures. The trees are now so diaphanous and the portico is so open that they hardly interrupt the continuity of the air. The figures are thin and elongated, so that they, too, have the immaterial quality suited to this fairyland. All the elements of Claude's poetry are here in their most naked form, but combined in a magical way which defies analysis". For the Claude specialist Michael Kitson it "at once sums up and goes beyond Claude's previous development. It is utterly personal and yet has that profound, tremulous and remote quality which characterizes the style of other great artists in their old age." Provenance and prices Once completed, the painting remained in the Colonna Palace in Rome until 1798/9, when the French occupied Rome, alarming the great families of the nobility. Along with many other top paintings from Roman collections, it was bought by the English collector, dealer, writer, and curator William Young Ottley. Ottley brought it to London, at a time when Claudes were fetching huge prices. It was sold at Christie's on 16 May 1801 for £462, being from now on separated