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| attributed to Nicolas Poussin Diana and Actaeon ca. 1614 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
HISTORY: Painted for the Château de Mornay (Charente-Maritime) probably in 1614.
"Only the scantiest information is available about the years between his [Poussin's] arrival in Paris and his final departure for Rome in 1624, and it is not even possible to determine how much of the period was spent in Paris and how much in traveling round the provinces. [Giovanni Pietro] Bellori tells us that soon after his arrival in the capital he made the acquaintance of a young gentleman from Poitou, who seems to have treated him with great kindness, giving him lodging in his house in Paris and taking him with him when he returned to his own province. There he let him decorate his château, but owing to the interference of an officious mother the scheme had to be abandoned, and the young artist found himself without money and three hundred miles from Paris. According to Bellori, he walked the whole distance back, supporting himself by occasional commissions to paint pictures in towns through which he passed. . . . In 1899 the Abbé Ténaud called attention to the existence of a painted gallery in the château of Mornay, between Niort and St-Jean-d'Angély, which, though in Saintonge, is only a few miles over the border of Poitou. The gallery, which was completely covered with painted decoration, bore an inscription: "Nicolas Poussin pinxit anno 1614." The Abbé immediately identified it as the work begun, but left unfinished, by the youthful Poussin. His thesis was accepted by some critics and challenged by others, till Otto Grautoff pointed out that the painting in the gallery which seemed to fit best with the date of 1614, the Diana and Actaeon, was a copy after a composition by Josef Heintz, engraved by Aegidius Sadeler. Most writers accepted this as proof that the painting was not by Poussin, on the grounds that the great French artist could never have degraded himself so far as to copy a design by a feeble German painter. This argument is, however, illogical, and there is nothing strange in the idea of Poussin copying such a model, for at the time Poussin was a struggling artist of twenty and Heintz, who had died in 1609, had been the favorite painter of Emperor Rudolph II, and his works were much copied and were known throughout Europe through engravings. It might well have happened that his patron had seen engravings of the painting in Paris and ordered his young painter friend to make an enlarged version of it as the nucleus of the decoration he planned for his gallery. The painting has suffered badly, partly in a fire which damaged the château in 1947, and it is therefore unwise to speak too categorically of its stylistic qualities. . . . The Diana and Actaeon does no great credit to the youthful Poussin, but the evidence for accepting it as his earliest surviving work is too strong to be ignored." [The majority of other scholars refuse to accept this attribution to Poussin.]
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| attributed to Nicolas Poussin The Death of Chione ca. 1622-23 oil on canvas Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon |
In 1998, fifteen years after the death of Anthony Blunt, his fellow Poussin scholar Denis Mahon published what he believed to be another very early Poussin. The Death of Chione, according to Mahon, was painted in Lyon in 1622-23, where for several months the young artist interrupted his journey to Rome, where he arrived and settled permanently in 1624. Poussin's source, as often, was the Metamorphoses of Ovid, where Chione, a mortal young woman, was said to have enraptured both Apollo and Mercury with her beauty. She boasted of her conquests, claiming that her charms exceeded those of Diana. Hearing this, the goddess pierced Chione's tongue with an arrow, ensuring that she could never repeat such blasphemy. The painting is thought to have been commissioned by Silvio Reynon, a silk merchant whose family had originated in Milan. It was documented in the Reynon family at the end of the seventeenth century. Subsequent to Mahon's announcement of his discovery, the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon launched a fundraising campaign, hoping to return the work to its city of origin. In 2016 the museum succeeded, purchasing The Death of Chione from London dealer Jean-Luc Baroni.
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| attributed to Nicolas Poussin Bacchus-Apollo ca. 1626 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
HISTORY: Sir Andrew Fountaine; perhaps his sale, 1731; if so, bought in; sold by his descendant, Christie, London, 1894; bought Holt; acquired by Langton Douglas in 1912 as from the Fountaine collection; Pearson collection, Paris; sold, Berlin, 1927; with Cassirer, Berlin; acquired by the Swedish National Museum in 1928.
"[Otto] Grautoff dated the picture to the Paris years, 1620-24, and was followed by Dr. Wild, but the Venetian handling and colour and the classical type of the principal figure rule this out. [Denis] Mahon places the parts which he accepts as original to about 1626 [shortly after the artist had settled in Rome].
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| Nicolas Poussin Apollo and the Muses on Parnassus ca. 1626 oil on canvas Museo del Prado, Madrid |
HISTORY: Presumably the painting seen by [André] Félibien in Rome in 1647. Possibly, anonymous sale, Banqueting House, Whitehall, London, 1684. Spanish Royal Collection by 1746.
"The Parnassus is a free variant of Raphael's fresco in the Vatican [directly below], with a not very skillful attempt to fill the gap – due in Raphael's composition to the window – by the insertion of the nymph of the Castalian spring, an awkward figure reminiscent of the School of Fontainebleau in its proportions. In certain respects Poussin has followed Marcantonio's engraving [also below] more closely than the painting. The putti, for instance, which occur in the engraving and in Poussin's painting, are not to be seen in the fresco. Erwin Panofsky believes that [Poussin's] painting is a tribute to [Poussin's early patron, the then-famous poet Giovanni Battista] Marino, and nothing would be more likely than that Poussin should have painted such a subject soon after the poet's death in 1625."
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| Raphael Parnassus 1511 fresco Stanza della Segnatura, Vatican, Rome |
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| Marcantonio Raimondi after Raphael Parnassus ca. 1517-20 engraving Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| attributed to Nicolas Poussin Apollo and Marsyas (endorsed by Pierre Rosenberg) ca. 1626-27 oil on canvas
private collection
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| attributed to Nicolas Poussin Landscape with Apollo and Marsyas (endorsed by Denis Mahon) ca. 1627 oil on canvas private collection |
Anthony Blunt acknowledged the existence of a "lost" painting by Poussin depicting the story of Apollo and Marsyas. It had been described in an inventory of the collection of Carlo II Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua in 1665 as Contesa di Marsia et Apollo con un altra figura. Two eminent art historians have put forward separate paintings (of their own discovery) as this missing Poussin, both speculatively dated to 1626 or 1627. Both are shown above. The Rosenberg picture was actually acquired by the Louvre, but a court case then forced the museum to return the work to its private owners (who claimed they had surrendered it without understanding its value). The Mahon picture was auctioned in 2016 and acquired by a private collector, but for a sum lower than would be expected of an authentic Poussin. The composition of this second Marsyas exactly mirrors that of Numa Pompilius and the Nymph Egeria [illustrated and discussed in the post immediately previous to this one], a work in the Musée Condé since the 19th century, and endorsed by Blunt. Mahon claimed the close resemblance argued in favor of Poussin's authorship, while others claimed the opposite – that it was too close a copy.
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| Nicolas Poussin Apollo and Daphne ca. 1627 oil on canvas Alte Pinakothek, Munich |
HISTORY: In the collection of the Electors of Bavaria by 1781.
"In another painting of this period Poussin depicted the story of Apollo and Daphne. . . . The pursuit is over; Apollo, seated with his lyre and quiver on the ground beside him, has one arm round the waist of Daphne, who is half-transformed into a laurel, while with the other hand he plucks a branch which grows from her body. Peneus sits with his hand over his eyes in an attitude of mourning. . . . Once again the moral is not difficult to decipher: the love of human beauty leads to disappointment just as much as the pursuit of wealth, and a man is foolish if he puts his faith in either, a view that shows that Poussin was approaching his later Stoical detachment from the things of the world. At this stage, however, he has no positive alternative to offer; "dust and ashes" is the burden of his song. . . . The picture has suffered badly. In the shaded parts of the putti on the left the pigment seems to have discoloured completely and the forms have almost disappeared. The body of Apollo appears to have been repainted and has a smooth, sticky quality of pigment quite unlike Poussin's handling."
HISTORY: [First recorded in the collection of prominent Parisian sculptor] Édouard Gatteaux; bequeathed by him to the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in 1881.
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| Nicolas Poussin Mercury, Herse and Aglaurus ca. 1627 oil on canvas École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris |
HISTORY: [First recorded in the collection of prominent Parisian sculptor] Édouard Gatteaux; bequeathed by him to the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in 1881.
"The subject is taken from Ovid's Metamorphoses. The picture was severely damaged in a fire which occurred in Gatteaux's house in the rue de Lille in March 1871 during the Commune. The middle area of the painting is now almost entirely repainted, but the parts which are reasonably well preserved, notably the figure of Mercury and the drapery of Aglaurus, who lies at his feet, are clearly from the hand of Poussin himself."
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| Nicolas Poussin Acis and Galatea ca. 1627 oil on canvas National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin |
HISTORY: The picture is not clearly identifiable with any mentioned in the early sources, but it was engraved in the seventeenth century by Antoine Garnier and may be the Galatée mentioned by Loménie de Brienne, though unfortunately the name of the owner is illegible in Brienne's manuscript. Perhaps Bragge sale, Prestage, London, 1750, and John Knight sale, Phillips, London, 1821. In 1831 the Dublin picture belonged to Earl Spencer, who sold it to Sir John Leslie in 1856. It was bought from his descendants by Sir Hugh Lane, who bequeathed it to the National Gallery of Ireland in 1916.
"The picture has on various occasions been called Peleus and Thetis, but it does not correspond in any way to this story. On the other hand it follows closely Ovid's account of the story of Acis and Galatea, with the two lovers in the foreground and Polyphemus piping in the background."
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| Nicolas Poussin Echo and Narcissus ca. 1627 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
HISTORY: Probably the picture bought by [Balthasar de] Monconys in Rome in 1664. Acquired by Louis XIV before 1683. Monconys records that on 29.v.1664 he called on Poussin 'qui reconnut et advoüa le tableau de Narcisse que j'avois de luy.'
"In composition [the Echo and Narcissus at the Louvre] is compellingly simple, even though the pose of the dead Narcissus is at first sight hard to understand. The reason for the strange placing of the left leg is that Poussin took this figure from the Christ in a Pietà by Paris Bordone [directly below], which he could have seen when he passed through Venice, but there the position of the leg is accounted for by the fact that it is supported by a weeping putto."
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| Paris Bordone Pietà before 1571 oil on canvas private collection |
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| attributed to Nicolas Poussin Narcissus (endorsed by Denis Mahon) ca. 1627-30 oil on canvas private collection |
This second Narcissus, portrayed as mesmerized by his own image and attended by Cupid, was another "discovery" by Denis Mahon of another painting that Blunt knew only from early documents and regarded as "lost." Mahon's Narcissus was auctioned in 1997, again going to a private collector for a price far below the sum that an undisputed Poussin would command.
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| Nicolas Poussin Venus and Mercury ca. 1627-29 oil on canvas (right-hand side of divided painting) Dulwich Picture Gallery, London |
HISTORY: Almost certainly the picture in the Lankrinck sale, Smith and Bassett, London, 1693; in the J. Meijers sale, Willis, Rotterdam, 1722; and in the Elector of Cologne sale, Paris, 1764; bought Basan. It was probably at this stage that the picture was cut in two, since the right-hand part from now onwards appears in English collections, where the left-hand section [a smaller fragment with putti] seems never to have left France.
"In some of these paintings the myth [of Venus] is used to convey a positive moral, as, for instance, in the Venus and Mercury. . . . In this case Venus is the goddess of beauty rather than the goddess of love, and Mercury is shown as the protector of the arts, surrounded by books, a lute, and a palette. The real theme of the painting is given by the two putti wrestling in the foreground. One is winged, whereas the other has goat's feet, that is to say, they are the well-known symbols of Eros and Anteros, or poetical and sensual love. . . . Evidently the composition is an allegory of the superiority of the intellectual and artistic pursuits over purely sensual pleasures, expressed in the victory of true love or love of beauty over sensual love. It is also a sort of "Education of Cupid," since the god of love was the son of Venus by Mercury."
– Anthony Blunt, Nicolas Poussin, (Phaidon Press, 1958) and The Paintings of Nicolas Poussin: a Critical Catalogue (Phaidon Press, 1966)