Anthony Blunt on Nicolas Poussin - Christian Imagery (II)

Nicolas Poussin
Martyrdom of St Erasmus
ca. 1628-29
oil on canvas
(modello for altarpiece)
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

HISTORY: Recorded as in the Palazzo Barberini by [Nicodemus] Tessin in 1687-88 and almost certainly acquired by Cardinal Francesco Barberini.  Passed by inheritance to the Colonna di Sciarra through the marriage of Cornelia Costanza Barberini (1716-97) to Giulio Cesare Colonna di Sciarra in 1728. Recorded in their palace by [Andrea] Manazzale in 1816, and by [Jacob] Burckhardt in 1855. Bought from the Colonna di Sciarra by Fairfax Murray before 1914 and sold by him to Ugo Ojetti, Florence. [Purchased by the National Gallery of Canada in 1972.]

Nicolas Poussin
Martyrdom of St Erasmus
1628-29
oil on canvas
Vatican Pinacoteca, Rome

HISTORY: Commissioned for St. Peter's in February 1628; payments from June to September 1629, with a special additional payment in October 1629. [André] Félibien says that Poussin obtained the commission through [Cassiano dal] Pozzo, but [Gianlorenzo] Bernini told [Paul Fréart de] Chantelou that he was responsible for its being given to the artist. It is, of course, quite posible that both men recommended him. Replaced by a mosaic [of the same image, standard practice in St. Peter's Basilica] and removed to the Quirinal before 1763.  

"The order to paint the Martyrdom of St. Erasmus for an altar in St. Peter's was for Poussin an event of the greatest importance, since such a commission was the highest aim of every young artist in Rome, and was the sign that he had entered the circle of papal favor.  The painting shows for Poussin an unusually dramatic treatment of horror and emotion . . . but at the same time, decorum, in the classical sense, is preserved.  The face of the saint shows anguish, but in the convention of the Laocoön, and his body preserves the noble forms of a classical marble."

"The iconography of the painting calls for some comment.  According to the early legends, St. Erasmus was subjected to various tortures but survived them miraculously and died a natural death.  He was venerated under the abbreviated form of St. Elmo, as the patron saint of sailors, and was therefore sometimes depicted holding a windlass with a rope wound round it.  In late medieval art of the North, the meaning of this symbol was mistaken and the legend transformed to the version shown by Poussin, namely that the saint's intestines were wound out on a windlass.  The altarpiece for St. Peter's is one of the earliest examples in Italian art of the saint's martyrdom being presented in this manner, the only earlier instance traceable being the painting by Carlo Saraceni (died 1620) in the choir of Gaeta Cathedral, which is dedicated to the saint.  The choice of iconography was evidently not made by Poussin but decided by the ecclesiastical authorities."  

Nicolas Poussin
The Entry of Christ into Jerusalem
ca. 1628-30
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nancy

HISTORY: Mentioned by [Étienne-Maurice] Falconet in a letter to Catherine II of Russia (25.x.1783) as having been brought from Paris by a dealer for sale in St. Petersburg and recommended by him to the Empress; presumably rejected by the Empress but bought by Falconet; passed to his granddaughter, Baronne de Jankowitz, and bequeathed by her on her death in 1866 to the city of Nancy. 

"The Entry into Jerusalem is original in its presentation of the subject, for the scene is viewed from inside the city gate, with Christ advancing toward the spectator and not, as is usual, from the outside, with the procession going into a gate shown in the middle distance."

Nicolas Poussin
The Virgin Appearing to St. James
ca. 1629-30
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

HISTORY: Painted for a church in Valenciennes. Duc de Richelieu [possibly acquired by means of French military looting before 1659]; bought with his collection by Louis XIV in 1665.

"In some ways the most Baroque of the whole group of paintings under discussion is the Virgin Appearing to St. James.  According to [Giovanni Pietro] Bellori and [André] Félibien, this was painted for a church in Valenciennes, but nothing is known of how the commission reached Poussin in Rome.  It was, however, almost certainly through a Spaniard, since Valenciennes was at that time in the Spanish Netherlands, and the subject, which represents the miraculous appearance that took place at Saragossa, was one to which the Spaniards attached great importance, particularly at this moment, when the cult of St. James and the story of his mission to Spain were very much under discussion.  In this picture, Poussin has adopted a fully Baroque formula."

"The Virgin is of the type that Poussin had used for similar figures in all the large figure paintings of the late twenties and has the floating veil to be seen in several Holy Families; the St. James is like the Joseph in the Flight into Egypt, and Poussin has given the saint's companions the dark archaic beards that appear in his paintings from the Golden Calf onwards; but the whole painting is much nearer to [Gianlorenzo] Bernini in feeling than any other work produced by Poussin, and it was not by chance that the sculptor particularly admired it when he saw it in the Duc de Richelieu's collection in Paris. It is also the only surviving painting by Poussin in which a definitely Caravaggesque detail can be found: the dusty feet of the man kneeling in the foreground are imitated from Caravaggio's Madonna di Loreto in Sant' Agostino [in Rome], where they have exactly the same intention, to emphasize the fact that the person concerned is a pilgrim with the dust of the road on his feet."

Nicolas Poussin
The Deposition
ca. 1629-30
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

HISTORY: Probably J.B. Grimbergs sale, Brussels, 1716. Perhaps the painting which in 1687 belonged to Pierre de Beauchamp, Maître de Ballets du Roi. Bought [by Catherine II, Empress of Russia] with the collection of Count Brühl, Minister of Augustus of Saxony, in 1769. 

"In the Deposition in the Hermitage the drama is primarily conveyed by the violent, almost grimacing expressions of the two mourning figures, but is intensified by the somber coloring, the strong chiaroscuro, and the vehemence of the design, with its emphatic diagonal leading from the putti at the feet of Christ to the head of St. John." 

Nicolas Poussin
Adoration of the Magi
1633
oil on canvas
Gemäldegalerie, Dresden

HISTORY: Probably the painting seen by [Gianlorenzo] Bernini [while visiting Paris] in the house of Cotteblanche in 1665, which had previously belonged to Martin de Charmois, the founder of the Academy (died 1661). According to a tradition, recorded in the Dresden catalogue, it later belonged to 'Lord Waldegrave,' presumably Earl Waldegrave, who was ambassador to Paris till 1740; it was perhaps left there when he quitted his post. Bought by Augustus III of Saxony in Paris through de Brais in 1742. 

"The next firm point in the chronology of Poussin's works is the Adoration of the Magi at Dresden, which is dated 1633.  The painting is strikingly different from any of Poussin's works of the immediately preceding years.  The choice of a conventional religious theme may be in part due to the commission, but the change of style cannot be accounted for by external circumstances; and the change is indeed profound: mood, lighting, color, spatial arrangement, and figure grouping, all are different."

"Instead of a poetical theme rendered in Venetian coloring and somber lighting, we find a conventional story told in factual terms, seen in clear daylight, with fully modeled figures set in a clearly defined space.  The foreground is filled with a group of figures, each conceived as a free-standing statue, occupying a stage in front of a ruined temple of which the stylobate forms a flat plane parallel with that of the picture.  Behind this, the recession is defined by the beams which link the front columns with the plastered back wall.  On the right, this lead into space is emphasized by the drum of a column, which draws the eye into the picture toward the background where we see the train of the three kings with their attendants, horses, and camels.  The whole scene is illuminated by the sun, which serves to model forms and, by means of the cast shadows of the architecture, to emphasize the spatial construction.  Here is nothing of the romantic twilight or the evocative atmosphere of the Ovidian elegies, and the influence of Titian has vanished.  It is significant that Poussin has now turned to other and, one can almost say, opposite models: Raphael, Annibale Carracci, and Domenichino."

"The connections of the Dresden Adoration with Giulio Romano, Raphael, Annibale Carracci, and Domenichino are of importance because they are significant of a fundamental change which was taking place in Poussin's style at this time and which was to affect his whole career.  In later years, according to his biographers, Poussin spoke of his early Venetian period as a sort of error of which he was almost ashamed.  He had been deceived, he said, by the charms of color and the sensuous attractions of Venetian painting but later realized that these were superficial qualities and therefore he sacrificed color to drawing, and Titian to Raphael and the Antique.  We may not agree with the judgment of values implied in such an assessment of his works, but this definition of the difference between his earlier and later styles touches on the essential point, and it is at this moment that the first signs of the change appear." 

Nicolas Poussin
The Virgin Protecting the city of Spoleto
or, The Translation of St. Rita of Cascia
ca. 1635
oil on panel
Dulwich Picture Gallery, London

HISTORY: Perhaps painted for Cassiano dal Pozzo. About 1800 belonged to Noël Desenfans. At his death in 1807 it passed with the whole collection to his friend, Sir Francis Bourgeois, who bequeathed it, together with his other pictures, to Dulwich College in 1811 [whose art collection passed to the Dulwich Picture Gallery in 1817].

"The painting was described in the nineteenth century as an Assumption, but this identification does not seem to be correct, since neither tomb nor Apostles are depicted.  Moreover, the town in the middle distance seems fairly certainly to represent Spoleto, of which Urban VIII and after his election as pope in 1623, his nephew, Cardinal Francesco Barberini, were archbishops." [Curators at the Dulwich Picture Gallery now identify the picture as The Translation of St. Rita of Cascia (Cascia being an Augustinian convent, near Spoleto.)]  

"The means that Poussin here uses to construct his landscape are the stock in trade of the Mannerist landscape painters: a repoussoir of rocks and trees, a middle distance  – not very clearly related to the foreground – containing the town itself, and a far distance of receding mountains.  But the result . . . is painted with great freedom and warmth."

Nicolas Poussin
Rest on the Flight into Egypt
ca. 1636-37
oil on canvas
Oskar Reinhart Institute, Winterthur, Switzerland

HISTORY: Perhaps Crozat sale, Delatour, Paris, 1751; Thélusson sale, Folliot, Paris, 1777; Marquis de Véri sale, Paillet, Paris, 1785, bought be Lebrun; belonged to William Lock; sold by him to van Heythusen and by him to [Noël] Desenfans; passed to the Marquis of Lansdowne; In Lansdowne collection when engraved by [Francesco] Bartolozzi in 1796; Lansdowne sale, Coxe, London, 1806, bought Earl of Grosvenor; by descent to the Dukes of Westminster; Westminster sale, Christie, 1924, bought Wildenstein; bought by [the Oskar Reinhart Institute] in 1926.   

Nicolas Poussin
St. John Baptising the People
ca. 1636-37
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

HISTORY: Belonged in 1685 to André le Nôtre and given by him to Louis XIV in 1693. 

Nicolas Poussin
St. John Baptising the People
ca. 1636-37
oil on canvas
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

HISTORY: Cassiano dal Pozzo; by descent to his nephew; ca. 1725 given by him to the Marchese del Buffalo with the Seven Sacraments as a pledge for a debt of 6000 crowns and offered for sale by Buffalo in 1729 to Louis XV; recovered by Pozzo in 1730; passed through his daughter to the Boccapaduli family, probably in 1759; bought by Byres for the Duke of Rutland in 1785; sold by his descendant in 1958 [to Emil Georg Bührle of Zürich; sold by his heirs to the Marlborough Gallery, London in 1966; purchased by the Getty Museum in 1971].   

"My temperament compels me to look for and take pleasure in well-ordered things. I avoid confusion, which is contrary and opposed to my nature, just as light is opposed to the darkness of night," wrote Nicolas Poussin.  Saint John baptizes the multitudes in an ideal landscape, framed by a tree trunk on each side.  Clothed in antique costumes, the orderly followers have arranged themselves into a carefully balanced frieze.  As always, Poussin approached this religious work from the tradition of order, clarity, and harmony associated with the art of ancient Greece and Rome." – (from curator's notes at the Getty Museum)  

Nicolas Poussin
Landscape with St Jerome
ca. 1636-37
oil on canvas
Museo del Prado, Madrid

HISTORY: Probably commissioned by Philip IV for the palace of Buen Retiro, near Madrid, as part of a series of paintings [commissioned from numerous Roman artists] representing anchorites, and recorded in the inventory of the pictures there made in 1700. 

"The Landscape with St. Jerome combines something of the new clarity visible in the Juno with the mastery of distance shown in the view of Spoleto.  It also shows for the first time Poussin's interest in the actual growth of different trees.  In the Numa these are completely generalized, and though in the Juno there is more variety, the structure is still arbitrary.  The St. Jerome is the work of a man who loves and has carefully studied the trees that he paints and wants to give each its peculiar character."

Nicolas Poussin
Adoration of the Shepherds
ca. 1637
oil on canvas
National Gallery, London

HISTORY: Possibly belonged to [André] le Nôtre and listed in the inventory taken at his death as un grand tableau du Poussin, peint sur toile, bordure de bois doré, représentant une Nativité, ayant 3 pieds et demi de haut sure deux pieds de largeur.  De Salle sale, Remy, Paris, 1761 (stated to be engraved by Picart with dedication to Colbert), bought Thibauts. Sir Joshua Reynolds sale, Christie, London 1795, bought Henry Walton, presumably for Sir Thomas Beauchamp-Proctor; by descent to Jocelyn Beauchamp; sold, Sotheby, London, 1956, bought D. Knoetser; bought from him by the National Gallery in 1957.    

"Following an old tradition in painting, Poussin includes both parts of the story and paints them as if they are happening at the same time.  The architecture separates the foreground scene from the activity in the background [where an angel proclaims the birth of Christ].  The stable is built within the ruins of a classical building with columns that frame the scene, symbolising the collapse of paganism and the triumph of Christianity.  . . .  A young lady enters the scene carrying a 'birth tray' of fruits as a present for the new mother – these were popular in Italy, and appear in Renaissance paintings of the Nativity.  She hurries forwards, her flamboyant drapery billowing behind her as she moves.  Its vivid blue, and that of Mary's clothing, stands out against the men's ruddy skin and the copper stone of the buildings.  Poussin's interest in classical antiquity is clear in the rigid drapery folds and the shepherd's muscular appearance, which are based on ancient statues." – (from curator's notes at the National Gallery) 

Nicolas Poussin
Rest on the Flight into Egypt
ca. 1638-39
engraving by Raphael Morghen (1787) of now-unlocated painting
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

HISTORY: Probably painted for Cardinal Giulio Rospigliosi, later Pope Clement IX; recorded in the Palazzo Rospigliosi, Rome, at various periods till 1803; bought by Cardinal Fesch; Fesch sale, George, Rome, 1845, bought George; Forcade sale, Pillet, Paris, 1873; Chennevières-Pointel collection, 1914; present whereabouts unknown. 

"Before the artist's departure for Paris [in 1640], Rospigliosi apparently commissioned a Rest on the Flight into Egypt, formerly in the Palazzo Rospigliosi but now only known from engravings.  This shows in the background an elephant, which might be thought to be a piece of local color to indicate that the scene is taking place in Egypt, but in fact, the elephant does not seem to have been so used and is generally associated with India rather than Africa in the seventeenth century.  In the case of the Rest it is more likely to have a symbolical meaning, since it was frequently cited by ancient writers as the most religious of animals, and was used with this significance by [Gianlorenzo] Bernini and others in the seventeenth century.  Such a use would be completely in accordance with Cardinal Rospigliosi's interest in allegory."    

Nicolas Poussin
St. Margaret
ca. 1638-40
oil on canvas
Galleria Sabauda, Turin

HISTORY: Prince Eugene of Savoy (died 1736); passed at his death to his niece, Princess Victoria of Savoy, who married the Duke of Sachsen-Hildburghausen; sold by her to Charles Emmanuel III, King of Sardinia, in 1741; thence by descent in the house of Savoy; taken to Paris in 1799 [by Napoleonic forces] and returned to Turin after 1815. 

"It is not known by whom or in what circumstances the picture was commissioned, but it may well have been through the instrumentality of Cassiano dal Pozzo's cousin, Amadeo, Marchese di Voghera, who lived in Turin and had previously commissioned the Crossing of the Red Sea and the Golden Calf.  The St. Margaret is, however, not mentioned by travellers who saw Amadeo dal Pozzo's collection, and it is likely that, if he was responsible for the commission, it was on behalf of a church rather than for himself.  The scale of the painting would confirm this hypothesis, but no composition of this kind seems to be recorded by travellers in Piedmont or the author's old guide books.  Alternatively, Prince  Eugene may have acquired the picture as loot on one of his campaigns."

Nicolas Poussin
The Institution of the Eucharist
1640
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

HISTORY: Commissioned by Louis XIII in December 1640 for the chapel at Saint-Germain; in May 1641 Poussin [then in Paris] was working on it actively; on 19 August he reports that it is still unfinished, but by 20 September it has already been set up in the chapel. The payment for the picture was made on 16 September. The picture was taken to the Louvre in 1792. 

– Anthony Blunt, Nicolas Poussin, (Phaidon Press, 1958) and The Paintings of Nicolas Poussin: Critical Catalogue (Phaidon Press, 1966)

Anthony Blunt on Nicolas Poussin - Christian Imagery (I)

Nicolas Poussin
The Death of the Virgin
1623
watercolor modello for painting
British Museum

HISTORY: Probably acquired by Thomas Worsley (1710-1778), Surveyor-General of the Board of Works to George III; [passed by inheritance to Sir William Marcus John Worsley, 5th Baronet (1925-2012); after his death accepted by H.M. Government in lieu of tax; assigned to the British Museum in 2015.] 

"A modello for Poussin's Death of the Virgin (Saint-Pancrace, Sterrebeek, Belgium), long acknowledged as the artist's earliest known painting.  The picture was commissioned from Poussin in 1623, shortly before his departure for Rome, by Jean-François de Gondi (1584-1654), the first Archbishop of Paris.  . . .  This watercolor was probably executed as a modello, submitted for the final approval of the patron before work began on the painting itself.  It is an important record of Poussin's early style, given the damaged state of the finished picture [directly below] in which many of the subtleties have been lost.  The two works differ in only a handful of details, most notably in the angles of the heads and hands of the figures, showing Poussin's continuing refinement of the figures' attitudes." – (from curator's notes at the British Museum) 

Nicolas Poussin
The Death of the Virgin
1623
oil on canvas
Église Saint Pancrace, Sterrebeek, Belgium

HISTORY: Painted for the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, Paris in 1623.  . . .  It is first recorded in one of the chapels of the nave in 1684.  This was probably the chapel of St. Peter Martyr, since it is recorded there, over the altar, in 1749.  In 1763 it was in the chapel of St. Gérald or St. Géraud.  Taken to the Grands-Augustins in 1793 [the Dépôt National des Monuments Français, where much religious art was concentrated after confiscation from churches during the Revolution], and to the Louvre in 1797, and sent to Brussels in 1803.  The attempts of the French Government to recover the picture in 1815 failed and it remained in Belgium.  It may have been destroyed . . . or it may be in a church in or near Brussels.  [Blunt died in 1983 with this painting still missing; it was discovered in 2000 in the church of Sterrebeek, near Brussels.] 

"The commission by Archbishop Jean-François de Gondi was inspired by the ecclesiastical elevation of the city of Paris, on 19 February 1623, from a mere bishopric (under the authority of the Archbishop of Sens) to an archbishopric in its own right.  He had been invested as the city's first Archbishop and his commission [to the young Poussin] speaks of both personal and civic pride.  In its broadest sense, the painting celebrated the Virgin, who as Notre-Dame was the patron saint of the new archbishopric.  The subject was taken from Jacques de Voragine's "Golden Legend," which related how the apostles were miraculously drawn from their preaching and reunited around the Virgin at the moment of her death.  However, The Death of the Virgin was probably originally destined for the Gondi family's own chapel in Notre-Dame, and Poussin's daringly innovative composition placed the figure of a bishop standing among the grieving apostles at the right-hand side of the composition." – (from curator's notes at the British Museum)

Nicolas Poussin
Massacre of the Innocents
ca. 1625-26
oil on canvas
Musée du Petit Palais, Paris

HISTORY: Altieri collection, Rome, by 1686-87; still mentioned as in the Palazzo Altieri by [Mariano] Vasi in 1794, but not listed in later editions [of Vasi's guidebook, Itinerario Istruttivo di Roma].  Possibly Lethières sale, Paillet, Paris, 1829; Collot sale, Laneuville, Paris, 1855 (stated to have been sold from the Palazzo Altieri in 1798), bought by the Dutuit brothers and bequeathed to the city of Paris. 

"[Otto] Grautoff argues that the painting was begun by Poussin and finished by another hand.  He was, however, probably misled by the state of the picture, which has suffered severely.  A considerable part of the executioner who occupies the middle of the composition is painted on a piece of later canvas inserted in the original, and the rest of this figure, together with much of the left-hand executioner, is largely restored, as is also the baby lying at the feet of the middle soldier."

Nicolas Poussin
Massacre of the Innocents
ca. 1628-29
oil on canvas
Musée Condé, Chantilly

HISTORY: Owned by and probably painted for the Marchese Vincenzo Giustiniani, Rome; bought from his descendants by Lucien Bonaparte; sold by him to the Queen of Etruria; inherited by her son, the Duke of Lucca; exhibited for sale with his collection, London, 1840; sold, Phillips, London, 1841 (as from the Lucien Bonaparte collection); W. Buchanan sale, Christie, London 1846; probably D. Gardener sale, Christie, London 1854; bought in 1854 from Colnaghi's, London, by the Duc d'Aumale, [and bequeathed by him to the Museum in Chantilly].  

"The Massacre of the Innocents at Chantilly is altogether exceptional iconographically in that it shows the whole tragedy concentrated in a single group of mother, child, and soldier, an almost Racinien concentration compared with the traditional pattern used by Poussin in his earlier version of the subject, with a series of different groups showing variations on the same theme [the version in the Petit Palais, above].  This method of treating the composition is an example of the principle supported by Poussin in the quarrel which took place at the Academy of St. Luke in the mid-thirties, when the classical party led by Andrea Sacchi maintained that a painting should only contain the minimum number of figures needed to explain the action and should not, as Pietro da Cortona and the Baroque painters maintained, be enriched with episodes introduced for their own sake rather than as a necessary part of the story."

Nicolas Poussin
Virgin and Child
ca. 1625-27
oil on canvas
(with flower wreath by Daniel Seghers)
Preston Manor, Brighton

HISTORY: Probably painted for Cassiano dal Pozzo in collaboration with Daniel Seghers, who executed the wreath of flowers. The painting can be dated precisely to the years 1625-27, the only period when Seghers was in Rome.

Nicolas Poussin
Pietà
ca. 1625-27
oil on canvas
(with flower wreath by Daniel Seghers)
Musée Thomas Henry, Cherbourg

HISTORY: Probably painted for Cassiano dal Pozzo in collaboration with Daniel Seghers, who executed the wreath of flowers. The painting can be dated precisely to the years 1625-27, the only period when Seghers was in Rome. Léon Dufourny sale, 1819; given to the Museum by the founder, Thomas Henry, in 1835. 

Nicolas Poussin
Assumption of the Virgin
ca. 1626-27
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

HISTORY: Belonged to the 9th Earl of Exeter in 1794; said to have come from the Palazzo Soderini, Rome. Passed by descent to the 6th Marquis of Exeter, who sold it in 1962 to Messrs. Wildenstein. Bought from them by the National Gallery in 1963. [Jacques Thuillier among other critics rejects this painting as an original Poussin].  

"The variety of Poussin's approach toward painting in these early years is attested by the Washington Assumption.  In technique it is like the Parnassus, with its touches of red; in certain passages of paint it is close to the early stage of the Dulwich David – the clay-colored drapery over the tomb, for instance, is to be found again in one of the figures on the right of the David; the blond coloring is like the Parnassus and parts of the David; the putti have stepped out of the Children's Bacchanals; and the Virgin is like the central mother in the Massacre [earlier version, above]; and yet in feeling, the picture is entirely different.  It is apparently the first of Poussin's few excursions into the Baroque, though it is a Baroque of such lightness and prettiness that one is reminded as much of the dix-huitième as of seventeenth-century Rome.  No doubt the nature of the commission compelled Poussin to this unusual use of pinks and creamy whites."

Nicolas Poussin
The Annunciation
ca. 1627
oil on canvas
Musée Condé, Chantilly

HISTORY: Probably owned, and perhaps commissioned, by Cardinal Ascanio Filomarino, Archbishop of Naples (a friend of Cardinal Francesco Barberini), who died in 1666.  Passed by inheritance to the della Torre family and mentioned as being in their palace till the end of the eighteenth century.  The Chantilly picture was bought by the Duc d'Aumale at the Frédéric Reiset sale, Pillet, Paris, 1879, [and at his death bequeathed to the Museum in Chantilly]. 

Nicolas Poussin
Holy Family with young St John the Baptist holding the Cross
ca. 1627
oil on canvas
Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe

HISTORY: Walsh Porter sale, Christie, London, 1810; W. Scrope by 1832 (exhibited at the British Institution in 1832 as lent by Scrope); Scrope sale, Christie, London, 1853; Matthew Anderson sale, Christie, London, 1861 (as from the Walsh Porter collection); Pearson sale, Paris, 1927; with Cassirer, Berlin; Baron Thyssen, Schloss Rohoncz; sold by his heirs, and bought by the Kunsthalle in 1962.

Nicolas Poussin
The Flight into Egypt
ca. 1627
oil on canvas
Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts

HISTORY: Bought by the Rev. Heneage Finch in 1825, probably in England; passed by descent to Col. J.C. Wynne-Finch; sold Sotheby, London, 1956, bought Armitage; anonymous sale, Sotheby, London, 1957, bought by [art historian] Lawrence Gowing; [purchased by the Worcester Art Museum in 1977].   

"The authenticity and the early date of the Flight into Egypt is supported by a drawing, which, though probably not an original, certainly incorporates a design of Poussin's and is in the manner that he used about the years 1626-28.  The Virgin in the painting is similar both in type and in dress to the corresponding figure in [other firmly ascribed works of this period].  The painting, though very much damaged, is original in its conception, particularly in the device of showing the figures moving across the canvas toward the right but all looking back toward the left, a stabilizing countermovement." 

Nicolas Poussin
Rest on the Flight into Egypt
ca. 1627
oil on canvas
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

HISTORY: Possibly from the Palazzo della Torre, Naples, inherited from Cardinal Ascanio Filomarino, Archbishop of Naples. [The Metropolitan Museum provides a conflicting, more recent and detailed provenance: "Giovanni Francesco Salernitano, barone di Frosolone, Naples, by 1648 (probably sold to De Castro); Giacomo de Castro, Naples, ca. 1652 (probably sold to Roomer); Gaspar Roomer, Naples, ca. 1653-74 (bequeathed to Van den Eynden, son of his former business partner); Ferdinand van den Eynden, Palazzo van den Eynden, Naples, died 1674, estate held by his widow until 1688 when their three daughters reached marriageable age; his daughter, Giovanna van den Eynden, Palazzo van den Eynden, later called the Palazzo Colonna di Stigliano, who in 1688 married prince Giuliano Colonna di Galatro; Colonna di Galatro, later Colonna di Stigliano collection, Naples; private collection, Italy; Arnold Seligmann, Rey & Co, New York, by 1937; Rudolf J. Heinemann, New York, by 1958; Mrs. Rudolf J. Heinemann, New York; bequeathed to the Metropolitan Museum by Mrs. Heinemann, 1997."] 

Nicolas Poussin
St. Cecilia
ca. 1627-28
oil on canvas
Museo del Prado, Madrid

HISTORY: Recorded as being saved from the fire in the Alcázar in Madrid in 1734. [Nothing is known of its history before its mention in the inventory of Madrid's Alcázar Palace in 1734, so it may have been acquired by King Philip V, who purchased various works by Poussin on the European art market, particularly in Amsterdam.] 

"The attribution of this work to Nicolas Poussin was formerly questioned – some historians attributed it to Charles Mellin – but today no one doubts its authorship, although the master may have made it in collaboration with assistants from his studio.  . . .  The saint's face appears in other paintings by Poussin from this period or slightly earlier, including . . . the Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine [directly below].  This painting of St. Cecilia is of great quality, firm execution, confident drawing, refined color and compositional elegance." – (from curator's notes at the Museo del Prado) 

Nicolas Poussin
Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine
ca. 1627-29
oil on panel
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

HISTORY: Cassiano dal Pozzo. In 1781 belonged to Humphrey Morice at Chiswick; bought from him with his whole collection by Lord Ashburnham in 1786; Ashburnham sale, Christie, London, 1850; S. Woodburn sale, Christie, London, 1853; T. Kibble sale, Christie, London, 1886 (as from the Ashburnham collection); Sir Herbert Cook; by descent to Sir Francis Cook; bought from him by Agnew's in 1946, and from them by Sir John Heathcoat Amory, [who bequeathed the painting to the Scottish National Gallery in 1973]. 

"[The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine] has a grandeur and a maturity absent from the earlier religious paintings.  Basically, the pattern goes back to a type much used in Venice in the sixteenth century, but whereas in the Venetian models the figures are generally either half-length . . . or set in an open space . . . here they are grouped together in a continuous mass, richly modeled in high relief.  . . .  The action in the group is varied, but the figures are bound together by a series of clearly defined movements.  The most obvious is the horizontal line that runs through the arms of the Virgin and Child to the hand of St. Catherine but branches at each end into diagonals, on the right through the sword and the drapery over St. Catherine's feet, on the left through the cloak of the Virgin and the palm held by the putto behind her.  This horizontal movement is stabilized by the verticals of the columns and the angels.  Poussin is here creating for the first time one of the geometrical networks which were to give such finality to his later classical compositions.  He had tried out this particular device in the Flight into Egypt [Worcester Art Museum, above], where the main link is formed by the straight line of the donkey's back, branching into the arms of the angel and the arms and drapery of St. Joseph, but in the St. Catherine it is used with greater effect, because the group is more complex and is modeled in three dimensions, whereas in the Flight the whole movement is in a single plane."

Nicolas Poussin
Return of the Holy Family from Egypt
ca. 1628-29
oil on canvas
Dulwich Picture Gallery, London

HISTORY: Probably John Puling sale, White, London, 1801; bought by Noël Desenfans. At his death in 1807 it passed with the whole collection to his friend, Sir Francis Bourgeois, who bequeathed it, together with his other pictures, to Dulwich College in 1811 [whose art collection passed to the Dulwich Picture Gallery in 1817]. 

"The combination of Christian and pagan symbolism is also evident in the Return of the Holy Family from Egypt.  It has been shown that the prefiguration of Christ's sufferings, clearly stated in the appearance of the Cross, is also underlined allusively by the parallel between the boatman about to ferry the Holy Family across the river and Charon ferrying souls across the Styx."  

Nicolas Poussin
Lamentation over the Dead Christ
ca. 1628-29
oil on canvas
Alte Pinakothek, Munich

HISTORY: In the collection of the Electors of Bavaria since the eighteenth century. 

"Poussin designed the scene with archaeological specificity.  An expensive tomb like the one on the right had already been constructed for Joseph of Arimathea, who offered it for the burial of Christ (Matthew 17: 57-60).  In the arrangement of the figures, Poussin utilizes a traditional triangular composition popular since the Renaissance, but elongated horizontally.  The sombre reddish-gray stone of the tomb and hillside sets the tone of the color scheme, while icy blue, bright red, and clear white serve as strong accents."  – (from curator's notes at the Alte Pinakothek, Munich) 

– Anthony Blunt, Nicolas Poussin, (Phaidon Press, 1958) and The Paintings of Nicolas Poussin: Critical Catalogue (Phaidon Press, 1966)

Anthony Blunt on Nicolas Poussin - The Four Seasons

Nicolas Poussin
Spring, or, The Earthly Paradise
1660-64
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

"In Spring . . . there are no flat planes, no rectangles, and yet every form is only a variant on these forms.  The group of Adam and Eve could be derived from an ancient gem; the shrubs in the foreground compose themselves into masses which have an underlying clarity unthinkable without the patiner's earlier experiments with geometrical forms.  The Tree of Knowledge over the two figures adds a vertical emphasis which holds together the varied masses around it; and the two sources of light, the direct rays of the sun on the left and the indirect glow on the right [seemingly emanating from the figure of God the Father in the sky] form a perfect but not obvious balance." 

Nicolas Poussin
Summer, or, Ruth and Boaz
1660-64
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

"Summer is built up . . . in a series of regular blocks.  Two walls of cut corn run parallel to the front of the picture, and are decorated, as if with a palmette motive, by the actual stems themselves.  The main part of the field forms a calm center for the whole composition, like the lakes and rivers in the earlier landscapes, and its broken edge on the right leads the eye through to the farther distance, composed of rocks, sea, and mountains.  The three figures in the foreground are placed in profile view, and their gestures form an almost rectangular pattern.  The reapers behind them stand out in a frieze, as if cut from the solid block of the corn.  On the right we see five horses trampling the corn, a detail that shows Poussin's knowledge of ancient practice and allows him to introduce a magnificent classical group, as noble as the horses on the Arch of Titus [below]."

Jean-Guillaume Moitte
Scene from the Arch of Titus, Rome
ca. 1791
terracotta relief
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Nicolas Poussin
Autumn, or, The Spies return with the Grapes from the Promised Land
1660-64
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

"Autumn is freer in its construction, but even here the group in the foreground follows the scheme of the bas-relief, and every step into the space of the picture can be followed without ambiguity."

Nicolas Poussin
Winter, or, The Flood
1660-64
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

"Winter is composed on equally clear principals.  The waterfall performs the function of the wall of corn, and its line is repeated by the rocks, the boat, and the swimming figure in the foreground [copied below by Géricault].  Even the Ark floating on the smoother water in the distance keeps to the strict system of parallel lines." 

Théodore Géricault after Nicolas Poussin
Man clutching Horse in Water
(detail from Poussin's Winter, or, The Flood)
before 1824
drawing
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio

HISTORY: The Four Seasons were painted, according to [André] Félibien, for the Duc de Richelieu between 1660 and 1664.  Bought with the whole of the duke's collection by Louis XIV in 1665.  [These were] the last works to be completed by Poussin.  . . .  They show signs of the shakiness of his hand in old age, but in spite of this they are among the noblest examples of his late landscape style.  Winter in particular has always aroused the interest of artists and critics, and was enthusiastically praised by men of such different tastes as Diderot, Delacroix, and Turner.

"The Seasons are Poussin's most splendid renderings of the grandeur and the power of nature in her different aspects, benign in Spring, rich in Summer, somber yet fruitful in Autumn, and cruel in Winter.  At the same time they illustrate a subsidiary theme, namely the four times of the day: Spring is morning with the sun just rising; Summer is noon; Autumn, with its cool light and long shadows, is evening, and Winter, with its darkness broken only by a watery moon, is night.  The combination of these two themes in a series of paintings is yet another instance of Poussin's desire to illustrate the processes of nature.  The regular succession of the days and the seasons of the year had been a common symbol for the harmony of the universe in ancient art and literature, and had also been much used by Christians.  . . .  In antiquity the seasons had usually been represented by allegorical heads of figures, sometimes accompanied by scenes with human beings or putti performing the actions appropriate to each part of the year, and this tradition was carried on in the catacomb paintings, except that the seasons are grouped round the figure of the Good Shepherd.  In the Middle Ages artists represented the seasons by episodes taken from everyday life, usually from country life."

"Poussin has approached the matter in a quite different spirit.  . . .  He has chosen a specific episode to symbolize each season, thereby giving a historical as opposed to a purely allegorical or domestic rendering of the theme. The subjects are drawn from the Old Testament: Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden for spring; Ruth and Boaz for summer; the spies returning with the grapes for autumn; and the Flood for winter.  The choice of these subjects is in a sense self-explanatory, since each appositely expresses the character of a particular season.  But, as has been shown by W. Sauerländer, there are other and less obvious allusions contained in the choice and treatment of the individual scenes.  According to his reading, the first three paintings represent the stages of man's history.  Spring, the state ante legem, before the giving of the law to Moses; Autumn, sub lege, under the old dispensation of the Mosaic law; and Summer, sub gratia, under the new dispensation of  Christ, since from the marriage of Ruth and Boaz sprang the line of David and thus of Christ, and, according to the common medieval interpretation of the subject, their marriage was also symbolical of Christ's union with the Church.  Finally, Winter stands for the Last Judgment.  In addition, there may be allusions to the Eucharistic wine in the grapes of Autumn, and to the bread and wine in Summer, where on the left is a woman making bread and another pouring wine out of a skin.  A further sacramental reference may be seen in Winter, since the Flood, as the destruction of the evil and the salvation of the good by water, is a symbol of Baptism."

"Finally, there may be a reference to pagan ideas of the seasons.  In Spring the sun is shown rising through the gap above Eve, exactly as it is in the Birth of Bacchus, where it symbolizes Apollo; in Summer Ruth, with her ears of corn, could almost be Ceres, and in certain sixteenth-century engravings she is depicted in a form which resembles the pagan goddess even more precisely.  The grapes of Autumn could as well be the symbol of Bacchus as of the blood of Christ, and coupled with the oversized apples carried by the right-hand figure they are certainly a symbol of fertility, in this case the fertility of the promised land of Canaan.  In Winter the huge snake crawling over the rock appears to have some special importance . . . probably as a symbol of the underworld.  The Four Seasons may, therefore, in addition to the Christian symbolism, stand for the four pagan gods: Apollo, Ceres, Bacchus, and Pluto.  Such a combination would be in keeping with Poussin's way of thinking at this stage of his career."    

– Anthony Blunt, Nicolas Poussin, (Phaidon Press, 1958) and The Paintings of Nicolas Poussin: Critical Catalogue (Phaidon Press, 1966)

Anthony Blunt on Nicolas Poussin - Old Testament (II)

Nicolas Poussin
Moses and the Burning Bush
1641
oil on canvas
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

HISTORY: Commissioned by Cardinal Richelieu for the Grand Cabinet in the Palais Cardinal (later Palais Royal) in Paris; finished before November 1641; bequeathed with the palace and its contents to Louis XIII; mentioned by [André] Félibien as belonging to Louis XIV, but not listed in any of the inventories of the royal collection; perhaps, therefore, left in the Palais Royal, which had been lent to the king's brother, Philippe, Duc d'Orléans, and was given in 1692 to the latter's son Philippe, Duc de Chartres, later Duc d'Orléans and Regent during the minority of Louis XV; probably removed during the alterations made to the palace by the younger Philippe d'Orléans, and perhaps given to the King of Denmark, in whose collection it is recorded in 1761. Originally oval, the canvas was at some point made rectangular, but the additions were removed in 1960. 

"Given the conditions under which Poussin worked in Paris [1640-42], it is not surprising that the paintings which he produced as a result of his official commissions are among the least attractive of his works; and yet they are of some significance in the development of his style and have more merits than are commonly allowed to them.  The huge scale on which Poussin was compelled to work had both disadvantages and advantages.  It led to a certain inflation, so that some of the canvases convey the feeling that they were conceived as small easel pictures and then enlarged to the scale of altarpieces.  On the other hand, Poussin, realizing that he had to find his own solution to the problem of large designs and being unwilling to accept any of the Baroque formulas for this type of painting, evolved a series of compositions which are compelling in their simplicity and yet satisfy the needs of large-scale religious pictures.  The design of the Moses and the Burning Bush, for instance, is based on a series of straight lines, mainly arms and legs, which define planes parallel and at right angles to each other and build up a clear composition in depth."  

Nicolas Poussin
Moses Trampling on Pharaoh's Crown
ca. 1642-47
oil on canvas
private collection

HISTORY: Painted between 1642 and 1647, probably for [Jean] Pointel, in whose possession it is first recorded; bought at his death by Loménie de Brienne; belonged to Cotteblanche in 1665; bought by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Marquis de Seignelay, son of the minister (died 1690); presumably passed with his collection to his younger brother, Jacques-Nicolas Colbert, Archbishop of Rouen (died 1707), and then to his nephew the Abbé de Colbert. Bought by Philippe, Duc d'Orléans, the Regent, before 1727; sold with the French and Italian pictures in the Orléans collection to Walkuers in 1792; sold by him the same year to Laborde de Méréville; bought in 1798 by Bryan for a group of English collectors; in Bryan's list of pictures for sale in 1798; bought by the 5th Duke of Bedford. The painting remained at Woburn Abbey in Bedfordshire until 2014, when sold by the 15th Duke of Bedford for £14 million to a private overseas collector. Protests and a public fundraising attempt failed to prevent the picture from leaving Britain.  

"Some light is thrown on Poussin's relation to ancient art by the use he makes of architecture in his paintings of the 1640's and later.  When possible, he bases his buildings on models which he found around him in Rome.  In the background of the Bedford Moses Trampling on Pharaoh's Crown, for instance, there appears the wall of a temple  articulated with Ionic half-columns, which corresponds exactly with the Temple of Fortuna Virilis in Rome; but this building is rare in being almost completely preserved, and in many cases Poussin is forced to use reconstructions of ancient monuments available in earlier writers on architecture."   

Nicolas Poussin
Moses Trampling on Pharaoh's Crown
ca. 1645-48
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

HISTORY: Painted for Cardinal Camillo Massimi, with Moses Changing Aaron's Rod into a Serpent [below] as a pendant; bequeathed to his brother Fabio Camillo; bought by Alvarez in Rome and sold by him to Louis XIV in 1685.

"Poussin twice painted the story of the infant Moses trampling on Pharaoh's crown, a subject not mentioned in the Bible but taken from Josephus.  It is very rarely depicted in the seventeenth century, and Poussin may have been led to it either by an interest in Josephus or by the fact that it occurred in the Speculum humanae salvationis as a type of salvation."

"In examining the paintings of the later period, we see how carefully Poussin adapts to his theme not only the gestures and poses of the people taking part, but also the general disposition of the scene.  The jagged movements of the figures in the two versions of Moses Trampling on Pharaoh's Crown convey the right sense of alarm.  . . .  Poussin does not actually mention color in connection with the theory of Modes, but in one of the notes recorded by [Giovanni Pietro] Bellori he writes of it: "Colors in painting are a snare to persuade the eyes, like the charm of the verse in poetry."  That is to say, color has to play its part in conveying the meaning of the painter, though, since it can only convey it to the eye, its share is not comparable to that of drawing, which appeals to the mind.  Poussin, therefore, takes the side of disegno in the old controversy which had raged since the middle of the sixteenth century between drawing and color, and this is no doubt what [André] Félibien meant when he wrote that Poussin and Raphael "devoted themselves more to form than to color, and preferred what affects and satisfies the mind and the reason to what only appeal to the sight." 

Manufacture Royale des Gobelins after Nicolas Poussin
Moses Trampling on Pharaoh's Crown
(Louvre version, image reversed)
ca. 1687
wool and silk tapestry
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

HISTORY: This hanging is part of a tapestry series, The Story of Moses, after paintings by Poussin and [Charles] Le Brun, which was woven in the Manufacture Royale des Gobelins, the first set started in 1683. Its weaving was part of an artistic programme intended to spread the theory of painting promoted by the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture. The Moses series was the first at the Gobelins to be derived from oil paintings which were not specifically designed for tapestry or radically adapted for this purpose.  . . .  The translation into a large-scale tapestry-woven hanging enabled the appreciation of Poussin's work in a more ostentatious way suitable for court spectacle, incorporating expensive materials including gold thread in the weaving (the painting measured 92 x 128 cm, the tapestry 363 x 480 cm). The set was woven six times, and [this example] is thought to have come from the third set (completed in 1687), given by Louis XV to his brother in 1716.  

Nicolas Poussin
Moses Changing Aaron's Rod into a Serpent
ca. 1645-48
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

HISTORY: Painted for Cardinal Camillo Massimi, with Moses Trampling on Pharaoh's Crown [Louvre version, above] as a pendant; bequeathed to his brother Fabio Camillo; bought by Alvarez in Rome and sold by him to Louis XIV in 1685.

"The three paintings of Moses show a further link with the paintings of before 1640 in that Poussin makes use of squared marble floors to establish foreground space, a device he had employed [earlier].  The main interest of this group, however, is that they are among the most elaborate examples of Poussin's method of displaying emotions by means of gesture.  In Moses Changing Aaron's Rod the gestures are relatively simple, the two prophets pointing to heaven as to the source of the miracle, and three of the Egyptian priests showing their astonishment at what is taking place.  But in the two paintings of Moses trampling on Pharaoh's crown the method is more fully developed, and every degree of surprise, outraged dignity, and, in the child's mother, terror, are told by gesture.  The two versions are similar in the general disposition of the figure groups, but they differ in feeling.  The Bedford picture is more elegant in its forms, more decorative in its setting and smoother in its handling; the Louvre picture is more gaunt and makes fewer concessions to the spectator, and the figures – particularly the woman on the extreme right with her legs crossed – are closer to the grand classical characters who people the stage in Poussin's paintings of the 1650's."    

Nicolas Poussin
The Finding of Moses
1647
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

HISTORY: Painted for [Jean] Pointel in 1647; acquired by the Duc de Richelieu; bought from him by Louis XIV in 1665.  

"The city to be seen [in the background to the two versions] of The Finding of Moses, is essentially composed of classical buildings, to which a few obelisks and pyramids – taken from the pyramid of Cestius [in Rome] – have been added to give a slightly Egyptian flavor."  

Nicolas Poussin
The Finding of Moses
1651
oil on canvas
National Gallery, London
and National Museum of Wales, Cardiff

HISTORY: Painted for Reynon of Lyons in 1651; acquired by the Duc de Richelieu; exchanged with Loménie de Brienne for a landscape by Annibale Carracci before 1662; sold by Brienne to du Housset, and by  him to the Marquis de Seignelay before 1685; in 1702 in the collection of Moreau, who bought if from Paillot; passed by inheritance to the Nyert family; Nyert sale, Musier, Paris, 1772. Acquired by the first Lord Clive; passed by inheritance to the Earls of Powis; sold by Powis descendants in 1988 and held jointly by the National Museum of Wales and the National Gallery, London.

Nicolas Poussin
Moses and the Daughters of Jethro
 (study for lost painting)
ca. 1647
drawing
Royal Collection, Great Britain

HISTORY: The original painting is lost and known only from drawings and engravings. There is no reference to the subject of this composition in the early sources.   

"Paintings of Moses and the daughters fo Jethro are not unknown at the time of the Renaissance or in the seventeenth century – the most famous example is the fresco by Botticelli in the Sistine Chapel – but the manner in which Poussin treats it . . . is so abstract that it is tempting to suggest that he may have had in mind the elaborate allegory erected on it by Philo, who makes of the story a symbol of the victory of reason over the five senses."

Nicolas Poussin
Eliezer and Rebecca
1648
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

HISTORY: Painted for [Jean] Pointel in 1648. Sold by the Duc de Richelieu to Louis XIV in 1665. 

The two paintings of The Finding of Moses and Eliezer and Rebecca now in the Louvre caused friction when received in Paris by Poussin's steady patron Jean Pointel.  Another regular Parisian patron, Paul Fréart de Chantelou, complained that Pointel's pictures were more beautiful than the paintings he himself had commissioned from Poussin.  The artist replied, "If you find the [paintings] which belong to M. Pointel so attractive, is this a reason for thinking that I did [them] with greater love than I put into your paintings?  Cannot you see that it is the nature of the subject which has produced this result and your state of mind, and that the subjects that I am depicting for you require a different treatment?  The whole art of painting lies in this.  Forgive my liberty if I say that you have shown yourself precipitate in your judgment of my works.  To judge well is very difficult unless one has great knowledge of both the theory and the practice of this art.  We must not judge by our senses alone but by reason." 

Nicolas Poussin
Eliezer and Rebecca
ca. 1655
oil on canvas
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

HISTORY: Anthony Blunt bought this picture (with money supplied by his friend Victor Rothschild) from the London dealer Duits in 1933, believing it to be an original Poussin, unrecognized as such, and possibly the painting of this subject recorded in the collection of Cassiano dal Pozzo.  In 1984, the year after Blunt's death, Eliezer and Rebecca was purchased by public subscription from his estate and presented to the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. 

Nicolas Poussin
Moses Striking the Rock
1649
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

HISTORY: Painted for Jacques Stella in 1649; bequeathed to his niece, Claudine Bouzonnet Stella, and by her to her niece, Marie-Anne Molandier; acquired by Sir Robert Walpole, ca. 1733; bought with the Walpole collection by Catherine II of Russia in 1779.

Nicolas Poussin
The Judgment of Solomon
1649
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

HISTORY: Painted for Jean Pointel in 1649. Acquired by Louis XIV from the painter Charles-Antoine Hérault in 1685. 

"In the Judgment of Solomon . . . Poussin has carried still further the methods of simple presentation.  The movement, though violent, is confined to the central part of the design and is very highly stylized.  The two mothers are emphatic in their gesticulations, but their gestures are broad and kept parallel with the plane of the picture.  Poussin's intention is made more apparent by a comparison with the drawing [directly below].  In this, the movements are freer; the baby is held by two soldiers, both of whom by their poses lead sharply into depth, and the figures on the right point violently toward the center of the composition.  In the final version, the baby is held by one soldier only, seen in a strictly classical attitude; the left-hand mother is moved round, so that there is no lead into depth, and the right-hand group of onlookers is reduced to a series of verticals, although the emotions of horror are still clearly indicated by gestures.  The picturesque background of the drawing, with a sort of apsed gallery filled with soldiers, has been abandoned in favor of a simple wall with two doors.  Solomon, seated between two columns, is now raised to a higher point in the composition, and the gesture which he makes with his two outstretched hands, a symbol of the balance of Justice, becomes the central theme of the whole composition." 

Nicolas Poussin
The Judgment of Solomon
ca. 1648-49
drawing
École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris

Nicolas Poussin
The Exposition of Moses
1654
oil on canvas
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

HISTORY: Painted for Jacques Stella in 1654; passed by inheritance to his niece, Claudine Bouzonnet Stella, and on her death in 1697 to her niece, Marie-Anne Molandier; bought by the Duc d'Orléans before 1727; sold in 1792 with the Italian and French pictures of the Orléans collection to Walkuers, who sold them in the same year to Laborde de Méréville; bought in 1798 by Bryan for a group of English collectors; exhibited the same year for sale in London and acquired by Richard, Earl Tempest, later 1st Duke of Buckingham and Chandos; sold by his son, the 2nd Duke, Christie, at Stowe Park, 1848; bought A. Robertson; Francis Gibson, Saffron Walden (died 1859); bequeathed to his son-in-law Lewis Fry; by descent to Miss Margery Fry; bought from her by the Ashmolean Museum in 1950. 

"Even stranger and more remote is the Exposing of Moses.  Here again the tempo of what little movement occurs is of the slowest.  The mother pushes off the cradle of bulrushes and looks around at her husband, her anguish expressed by the open mouth and gaping eyes of a Roman mask.  He moves slowly away to the left, deep in melancholy contemplation, while in the middle the child's sister points, presumably to someone who is approaching and may come upon them before they have completed their task.  She makes a gesture of silence which is a slightly simplified and stylized version of Poussin's earlier rhetorical method of expression.  On the right the river god, representing the Nile, looks on impassively."

Nicolas Poussin
Esther before Ahasuerus
ca. 1655
oil on canvas
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

HISTORY: The picture is first traceable in Cérisier's collection, where it was seen by [Gianlorenzo] Bernini in 1665. Le Maire describes it when it belonged to Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Marquis de Seignelay (died 1690). Seignelay's collection was inherited by his brother Jacques Nicolas, Archbishop of Rouen, who died in 1707 and bequeathed it to his nephew, the Abbé de Colbert, later Comte de Seignelay. The picture was in the collection of Philippe, Duc d'Orléans, the Regent, by 1717, when it was seen by Thornhill.  . . .  It must have been sold or given away before 1727, since it is not mentioned by Dubois de Saint-Gelais in his detailed catalogue of the Orléans collection. The Esther was acquired by the Empress Catherine II of Russia between 1763 and 1774. 

Nicolas Poussin
Landscape with Hagar and the Angel
ca. 1660-64
oil on canvas (cut down)
Palazzo Barberini, Rome

HISTORY: Nothing is known of the history of this picture. It is presumably a fragment, since the tents of Abraham, to which the angel is pointing, must have been visible on the left. The attribution to Poussin was first suggested in the early 1950's by Professor Rudolf Wittkower, who discovered the work in private hands at Palazzo Altieri in Rome. Subsequently the Hagar was acquired for the nation, and consigned to the public collection at Palazzo Barberini.   

– Anthony Blunt, Nicolas Poussin, (Phaidon Press, 1958) and The Paintings of Nicolas Poussin: Critical Catalogue (Phaidon Press, 1966)