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| Nicolas Poussin Holy Family with young St John the Baptist 1655 oil on canvas John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida |
HISTORY: Begun for 'une personne grande' (probably the Duc de Créqui, French Ambassador in Rome), who decided not to take it; offered in August 1655, when still unfinished, to Mme. de Montmort, later Mme. de Chantelou, who had asked for a Madonna. The offer was withdrawn in November 1655, when the artist discovered that the painting was not after all available, and it is to be presumed that it went to the person who had originally commissioned it. The Sarasota picture is at first traceable in the collection of Sir Richard Worsley (1751-1808), and passed by inheritance to the Earls of Yarborough; sold Christie, London 1929, bought Newton; with Böhler; sold by him to the Ringling Museum.
"In the 1640's Poussin had eliminated the playful and picturesque ornaments with which he had filled his earlier Holy Families and had concentrated on the essential elements of the theme; but he had still treated the subject in a human way and had taken pains to render the psychological relation of the Christ Child to the Virgin or St. John. In the last Holy Families, however, even these elements disappear. The figures become motionless blocks gazing into space, hardly aware of each other. The forms of the heads become simplified and geometrical, and the draperies, though still Roman, fall in broader and less varied folds than hitherto. In their stony silence these groups come close to those of Georges de la Tour, another French classical artist."
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| Nicolas Poussin The Annunciation 1657 oil on canvas National Gallery, London |
HISTORY: A trompe l'oeil wooden plaque fixed to the stone parapet or low wall contains Poussin's signature, the date 1657, and the name of Pope Alexander VII Chigi (1599-1667), who may have commissioned the painting. However, it is not mentioned in any guidebooks to Rome that describe the Pope's houses and collection. The Virgin and angel are carefully arranged on the parapet as if the painting were intended to be part of a building. Poussin's patron and mentor Cassiano dal Pozzo died in 1657, and was buried in Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome. This work could have been painted as a memorial for his tomb. Presented to the National Gallery by Christopher Norris in 1944. – (from provenance notes at the National Gallery)
"From its inscribed cartellino – unique in Poussin's work – and from the tradition attached to it, we may conclude that the Annunciation of 1657 was probably painted for Pope Alexander VII, and that it belongs therefore to the small group of official commissions given to Poussin in which the artist was usually ill at ease. In this case he is attempting to work in the key of ecstasy which came naturally to Baroque artists but was foreign to him; and the result is not altogether successful. But, if we compare it with a similar group by [Gianlorenzo] Bernini, the Ecstasy of St. Teresa [directly below], the restraint and classicism of Poussin's version at once become apparent. Bernini's saint swoons in a flood of broken drapery, with an expression that reminds us how fine is the borderline between the mystical and the sensual. The smiling angel approaches her with free Baroque movement, about to pierce her heart with the arrow. Poussin's Virgin does not swoon; she sits with eyes closed and with her hands in a gesture of submission to the divine will, represented by the statuesque angel on the right. There is no Baroque movement; on the contrary, the gesture of the Virgin's hands is exactly symmetrical, and the arm of the angel and his pointing hands are turned precisely into the picture plane. Finally, over the Virgin hovers the dove, seen frontally and enclosed in a perfectly circular aureole. Poussin, in fact, was here trying to demonstrate how one could reduce a late Baroque theme to the rules of classical art."
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| Gianlorenzo Bernini Ecstasy of St Teresa 1652 marble Cornaro Chapel Chiesa di Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome |
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| Nicolas Poussin The Annunciation after 1657 oil on panel Alte Pinakothek, Munich |
HISTORY: Acquired by the Museum in 1806 as by Poussin. [Blunt rejects this painting as an original by Poussin, instead suggesting that it is a modified copy by another hand.]
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| Nicolas Poussin The Vision of Santa Francesca Romana ca. 1657 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
HISTORY: Almost certainly commissioned by Cardinal Giulio Rospigliosi, later Pope Clement IX. The engraving by Pietro del Po is dedicated to Cardinal Giulio Rospigliosi, and the picture is recorded in the Rospigliosi inventory made in 1713. The subject, rarely depicted, is the appearance of the Virgin to Santa Francesca Romana, who had prayed to her to implore her to stop a plague which had struck the city of Rome in the early 15th century. [Blunt listed the original as a "lost" painting by Poussin. The original was discovered in 1999, accepted as such and acquired by the Louvre.]
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| Nicolas Poussin The Holy Family in Egypt ca. 1655-57 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
HISTORY: Painted for Mme. de Montmort, later the wife of Paul Fréart de Chantelou, between November 1655 and December 1657. Stroganoff collection, St. Petersburg, probably bought by Count Alexander Stroganoff (1733-1811) in Paris in the 1770's; put up for sale with the Stroganoff collection by the Russian Government, Lepke, Berlin, 1931; bought in, and placed in the Hermitage.
"In color Poussin's last paintings differ considerably from his works of the 1640's. The bright reds and blues are no longer to be found, and the dominant tones are a pale pinkish-red, light powdery blue, and almost primrose yellow; in the landscapes, dull gray-greens in the foliage, and in the skies, a blue much less strong than in the landscapes of 1648 to 1651. These tones are not so characteristic of oil painting . . . and Poussin may have been incited to choose them by a study of Raphael's frescoes, which certainly influenced his later works, or possibly by Roman models – frescoes or mosaics, such as that at Palestrina, which has the same cool colors and which was a model much studied by Poussin in his last years. This mosaic had been discovered about 1600 in the Temple of Fortuna at Praeneste (Palestrina), over which was built the palace of the Barberini. The mosaic was transferred to their Roman palace, and [Cassiano dal] Pozzo had copies of it made in watercolor. It represented scenes from Egyptian life and was regarded at the time as a reliable source of information on this subject. Poussin used it in this way for his Holy Family in Egypt [above], executed in the years 1655-57. The procession and the porch under which it is passing are taken directly from the mosaic [below]. This is Poussin's most thoroughgoing attempt to give a setting which is not only generally classical but quite precise in its reconstruction of the country intended. ("I put all these things into the painting in order to delight by their novelty and variety, and to show that the Virgin who is there shown is in Egypt.") The fact that the mosaic shows Egypt seen through Roman eyes, and would not stand up to the criticism of a modern archaeologist, is not relevant; the point is that Poussin used with care the best source available to him"
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| Hellenistic Artists working in Rome Nile Mosaic of Palestrina (detail) 1st century BC mosaic Museo Nazionale Prenestino (Palestrina) |
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| Nicolas Poussin Adoration of the Shepherds ca. 1655-57 oil on canvas Alte Pinakothek, Munich |
HISTORY: Inherited in 1777 by Carl Theodor, Elector of Bavaria, from the last Wittelsbach Elector Palatine, Max Joseph III, and brought from Mannheim to Munich.
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| Nicolas Poussin The Flight into Egypt ca. 1657-58 oil on canvas Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon |
HISTORY: Painted for [Jacques] Cérisier in 1658; seen in his house by [Gianlorenzo] Bernini in 1665. Possibly the painting mentioned by Brice in 1713 as in the collection of Raoul de la Porte. [Blunt listed the original as a "lost" painting by Poussin. The original was discovered in 1986, accepted as such and acquired by the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon.]
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| Nicolas Poussin Baptism of Christ ca. 1655-58 oil on canvas Philadelphia Museum of Art |
HISTORY: According to a note of Spon, dating from after 1673, a painting of this subject belonged to Jean de La Fourcade, alderman of Lyon. Presented to the Philadelphia Museum of Art from the John G. Johnson collection in 1917.
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| Nicolas Poussin Christ and the Woman of Samaria 1662 engraving by Jean Pesne (before 1690) of now-lost painting British Museum |
HISTORY: Painted for Mme. de Chantelou, wife of Paul Fréart de Chantelou, in 1662. Mentioned in April 1662 as finished, except for the head of Christ. In November Poussin writes that he assumes that Chantelou has received it. In his letter, Poussin says that this will be the last painting that he will ever execute. [André] Félibien points out that he did not complete the Seasons for the Duc de Richelieu till 1664, but it is true that he did not execute any more figure paintings. According to an early nineteenth-century manuscript note, probably by the collector Dufourny, the picture was at that time in the possession of 'Legrand'. [The painting remains lost, as listed by Blunt, now known only through engravings and copies.]
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| Nicolas Poussin The Agony in the Garden 1648 oil on copper private collection on deposit at the Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
HISTORY: [Joachim van] Sandrart lists a painting of Christus im Oelgarten von dem Engel gestärket, no doubt the picture in [Cassiano dal] Pozzo's collection mentioned by various writers. Robert de Cotte gives no details about it, but the Ghezzi inventory states that it was on copper. [Blunt listed this as a "lost" painting by Poussin. The original was discovered in 1985, and accepted as such by Jacques Thuillier. Acquired by a private collector at auction in 1999 and placed on deposit at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles.]
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| Nicolas Poussin Lamentation over the Dead Christ 1655-57 oil on canvas National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin |
HISTORY: Possibly the Adriaan Bout sale, The Hague, 1733. In the collection of the Duke of Hamilton; Hamilton Palace sale, Christie, London 1882; bought by the National Gallery of Ireland.
"The same method is used with the greatest effect to heighten and concentrate the drama of the Lamentation. The economy of gesture is obvious if the picture is compared with the Munich version of twenty-five years earlier. The figures stand or kneel without actual movement. One figure clasps her hands in a gesture of anguish, but her action is in accordance with the conventions of classical art, and is quite unlike the frenzy of the corresponding figure in the Munich composition. The body of Christ is laid out straight across the foreground – in a pose taken incidentally from the Pietà at Viterbo [directly below], designed by Michelangelo and executed by Sebastiano del Piombo – and no longer has the loose pose of a body thrown down on the ground, a feature which would certainly have been thought contrary to propriety by Poussin in his late years. The whole design is based on a strict set of verticals and horizontals, rounded off by the kneeling figures of John and Joseph of Arimathea. This simplicity of composition adds to the solemnity of the picture and gives it a gravity quite different from the violence of emotion in the earlier work."
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| Sebastiano del Piombo after Michelangelo Pietà ca. 1515 oil on panel Museo Communale, Viterbo |
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| Nicolas Poussin Noli me tangere ca. 1653 oil on panel Museo del Prado, Madrid |
HISTORY: Painted for Jean Pointel; collection of Jacques Meijers, Rotterdam, 1722; acquired by Philip V of Spain, 1727. [Blunt rejects this painting: "in my opinion by an imitator, perhaps Pietro del Po."]
– Anthony Blunt, Nicolas Poussin, (Phaidon Press, 1958) and The Paintings of Nicolas Poussin: Critical Catalogue (Phaidon Press, 1966)