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| Nicolas Poussin The Miracle of St Francis Xavier 1641-42 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
HISTORY: Commissioned by [François] Sublet de Noyers in 1641 [during Poussin's working sojourn in Paris]. In February 1641 Poussin was reading the lives of St Ignatius and St Francis Xavier to find a suitable subject; in August he is about to begin the picture and was still working on it in November of the same year. Acquired by Louis XV in 1763 on the suppression of the Jesuit Order in France.
"The Miracle of St. Francis Xavier is more lively in its gestures and its movements, but compared with what must certainly have been the model in Poussin's mind – Raphael's Transfiguration [directly below] – the design is more rigidly constructed, the figures, for instance, being almost all either in profile or full face."
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| Raphael The Transfiguration ca. 1516-20 tempera on panel Vatican Pinacoteca, Rome |
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| Nicolas Poussin The Holy Family 1641-42 oil on canvas Detroit Institute of Arts |
HISTORY: Painted for Stefano Roccatagliata in 1641-42. Belonged to Le Bailli de Breteuil, Ambassador to Rome of the Order of Malta between 1759 and 1761 (drawn there by Fragonard on his first Italian visit). There was a Breteuil sale held by Lebrun in Paris in December 1760, but as no copy of the catalogue survives it is impossible to say whether the Holy Family was included in it. Robert Ansell sale, Christie, London 1771 (as from the Breteuil collection), bought for Lord Melbourne. The Detroit picture was acquired before 1925 by Mr. and Mrs. Edgar Whitcomb of Detroit; passed by descent to Mr. and Mrs. A.D. Wilkinson; presented by them to the Institute of Arts in 1954.
"The classicism and simplicity of the official paintings executed during the visit to Paris reveal for the first time elements of style which Poussin was to practice after his return to Rome, and the same link is established, though in a different way, by the two small canvases which he painted for private patrons during his stay. One was the Baptism executed to complete the series of Sacraments for Cassiano dal Pozzo [the two series of Sacraments will be treated together in a later post], and the other was a Holy Family [directly above] for the dealer Stefano Roccatagliata. . . . Poussin had represented the subject during the thirties, but, when he did so, he treated it in the spirit of the Titianesque poesie, with a flutter of putti which would have been as appropriate to a Toilet of Venus as to a religious subject, and a sunset background which might well have appeared in a Diana and Endymion. Now the adjuncts are stripped off; the scene takes place in a simple room, of which the only ornaments are an amply draped curtain and a plain classical tripod. The Virgin, seen in profile, sits in a strictly bas-relief pose, with one foot resting on a block of stone, while Joseph appears in the background, asleep by a window. The artist's whole interest is focused on the psychological relation between the mother and child, and nothing is allowed to distract the spectator from this central theme. Both in this painting and in the larger canvases it is possible to detect a change that came into Poussin's color during the visit to Paris. The coolness of the paintings of the previous years is maintained, but their almost gray quality disappears and is replaced in the Holy Family by a delicate harmony of golden yellow and peach-colored draperies and in the larger paintings by flat areas of rather strong and clear colors. Both these tendencies were to be developed in the work of the succeeding period."
HISTORY: Probably painted for Cardinal Giulio Rospigliosi, later Pope Clement IX; recorded in the Palazzo Rospigliosi in the eighteenth century; Frédéric Reiset collection; bought from him by the Duc d'Aumale [and bequeathed by him in 1897 to the Musée Condé].
HISTORY: Presumably painted for Cardinal Francesco Barberini, since it is recorded in the Palazzo Barberini in a manuscript inventory (among the Barberini papers at the Vatican), which lists the possessions of Carlo Barberini in 1692. Passed by inheritance to the Colonna di Sciarra, no doubt through Cornelia Costanza Barberini (1716-97), who married Giulio Cesare Colonna di Sciarra in 1728. Noted as in the Palazzo Sciarra by M. Graham in 1820, and bought from there by the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in 1873. [The Art Institue of Chicago in its provenance for Landscape with St John on Patmos (below) states that the Landscape with St Matthew and an Angel was commissioned as its pair by Abate Gian Maria Roscioli in Rome prior to 1644].
HISTORY: Commissioned by the Président Jacques de Thou before May 1644; begun by 12.xi.1645 and finished by 3.vi.1646; Jacques Stella, bequeathed by him to his niece, Claudine Bouzonnet Stella, and by her to her niece, Anne Molandier, in 1697. Blackwood sale, London 1751; Sir Lawrence Dundas sale, Greenwood, London, 1794, bought Lord Ashburnham. Not in the Ashburnham sale (Christie, London, 1850) and presumably bought back by the Dundas family, since it passed by inheritance to the Marquises of Zetland; Zetland sale, Christie, London 1934, bought Durlacher. Bought by the Wadsworth Atheneum in 1935.
HISTORY: Painted in 1648 for Jean, elder brother of Paul Fréart de Chantelou; Czernin collection, Vienna; Wildenstein, New York.
HISTORY: Painted for Hennequin de Fresne in 1648, and later in the Hôtel de Guise. Presumably in the Abbé Le Blanc sale, Lebrun, Paris, 1781; in the Comte de Vaudreuil sale, Lebrun, Paris, 1787; in the La Reynière sale, Lebrun, Paris 1793; Trumbull sale, Christie, London, 1801. The Washington picture was in the possession of the Duke of Sutherland by 1844; Duke of Sutherland sale, Christie, London, 1913, bought in; bought from the Duke by Agnew in 1947; sold to the Kress Foundation, 1949, and presented to the National Gallery.
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| Nicolas Poussin The Ecstasy of St Paul 1643 oil on canvas John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida |
HISTORY: Painted for Paul Fréart de Chantelou in 1645; by 1713 in the collection of Nicolas de Launay, father-in-law of Robert de Cotte, in his apartment under the Long Gallery of the Louvre; still recorded there in 1725; bought by the Duc d'Orléans, presumably at Launay's death in 1727. Sold with the Italian and French pictures of the Orléans collection in 1792 to Walkuers; sold by him the same year to Laborde de Méréville; bought 1798 with the collection by Bryan for a group of English collectors; exhibited by Bryan for sale in 1798; bought by G.W. Taylor; Taylor sale, Christie, London 1823. Later belonged to Prince Woronzov; Woronzov sale, Florence, 1900. Probably the painting which appeared in the following sales: Dr. Adolph Hammel, Zurich, 1909; Carl Lanz, Mannheim, 1917. Bought in Germany by Frederick Mont; sold by him to Rosenberg and Stiebel, New York; bought by the Ringling Museum in 1956.
"Some time before the middle of 1643 Chantelou asked Poussin to paint for him a picture which was to hang as a pair to the Vision of Ezekiel, which Chantelou had acquired in Italy and which he believed to be an original by Raphael [the original is reproduced directly below, Chantelou's picture was in fact a good, early copy]. On 2.vii.1643 Poussin expresses his apprehension at having to execute a work in rivalry to Raphael. By 25.viii.1643 he has found the pensée, which presumably means that he had made drawings, and he promises to begin the painting in the following week. . . . The picture was finally despatched [from Rome, to Chantelou in Paris] on 4.xii.1643."
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| Raphael The Vision of Ezekiel 1518 oil on panel Palazzo Pitti, Florence |
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| Domenichino The Ecstasy of St Paul ca. 1607-1608 oil on copper Musée du Louvre |
"The Ecstasy of St. Paul was presumably chosen by Chantelou to do honor to his patron saint . . . but he may also have been influenced by the fact that the theme had been painted by Domenichino in a small picture [directly above] which belonged to the Jesuits in the Rue St.-Antoine and is now in the Louvre. Presumably Poussin had seen it there on his visit to Paris, for his version of the subject is much closer in feeling to Domenichino than to the composition of Raphael which it was intended to balance. But Poussin is more strictly classical than either of his predecessors in his treatment of the group. The subject is simpler than Raphael's, which involves representing the four beasts, but even compared with Domenichino's version of the St. Paul, which is so similar to Poussin's in its sentiment, the Frenchman's proves that he has eliminated all the Baroque elements and has turned the design so that not only is the whole group seen frontally, but, with the exception of one putto, each individual figure is seen either full face or in profile. The same frontal presentation appears in the Holy Family in the Temple [directly below], though here the actual handling is harder, and the draperies are beginning to take on the marble quality which they have in the Sacraments."
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| Nicolas Poussin The Holy Family in the Temple ca. 1643 oil on canvas Musée Condé, Chantilly |
HISTORY: Probably painted for Cardinal Giulio Rospigliosi, later Pope Clement IX; recorded in the Palazzo Rospigliosi in the eighteenth century; Frédéric Reiset collection; bought from him by the Duc d'Aumale [and bequeathed by him in 1897 to the Musée Condé].
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| Nicolas Poussin Landscape with St Matthew and an Angel ca. 1643 oil on canvas Gemäldegalerie, Berlin |
HISTORY: Presumably painted for Cardinal Francesco Barberini, since it is recorded in the Palazzo Barberini in a manuscript inventory (among the Barberini papers at the Vatican), which lists the possessions of Carlo Barberini in 1692. Passed by inheritance to the Colonna di Sciarra, no doubt through Cornelia Costanza Barberini (1716-97), who married Giulio Cesare Colonna di Sciarra in 1728. Noted as in the Palazzo Sciarra by M. Graham in 1820, and bought from there by the Kaiser Friedrich Museum in 1873. [The Art Institue of Chicago in its provenance for Landscape with St John on Patmos (below) states that the Landscape with St Matthew and an Angel was commissioned as its pair by Abate Gian Maria Roscioli in Rome prior to 1644].
"The St. Matthew has an identifiable site. According to a tradition recorded by various early nineteenth-century writers, Poussin had a particular love for the stretch of the Tiber just above the Milvian Bridge, beside which was to be found the Acqua Acetosa, a scene which Corot painted and in one case called La Promenade de Poussin [directly below], and this is the scene in which he has elected to show the Evangelist composing his Gospel. The site is clearly identifiable today, in spite of the encroachments of modern Rome, the spur on the left being the extreme point of the Villa Glori, now the Parco della Rimembranza. In the middle distance, on one of the ridges in the valley, appears a massive square tower built to guard the approaches to Rome. Almost nothing now survives of it, and even earlier representations of it are too vague to provide a basis for comparison with Poussin's version. In the background the artist has taken certain liberties. The view should be closed by the nearby Monte Mario, for which Poussin has substituted distant hills. The muddy banks of the Tiber are, however, rendered with great fidelity."
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| Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot La Promenade de Poussin ca. 1825-28 oil on paper, mounted on canvas Musée du Louvre |
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| Nicolas Poussin Landscape with St John on Patmos ca. 1644 oil on canvas Art Institute of Chicago |
HISTORY: Commissioned by Abate Gian Maria Roscioli, Rome (died 1644); probably in a French collection by 1680 (when engraved by Louis de Châtillon). François-Antoine Robit, Paris, sold 1801 to Naudou acting for Michael Bryan; sold by Bryan, probably shortly thereafter, to Sir Simon Clarke, Bt. (died 1832); sold Christie's, London, 1840 to Andrew Geddes, London (died 1844); by descent to his widow, Adela Plimer Geddes (died 1881). Acquired on the London art market by Max Rothschild, 1918. E.A. Fleischmann Gallery, Munich, by 1930; sold to the Art Institute, 1930 – (from the provenance provided by the Art Institute)
"The St. John does not seem to represent any identifiable site, and Poussin presumably intended only to depict an island with Greek buildings to represent Patmos, about which he could hardly have had much information. He has taken the liberty of introducing the Torre delle Milizie and the Castel Sant' Angelo, which was evidently one of his favorite monuments, into the Greek city in the extreme distance. The St. John is probably a year or two later than the St. Matthew, and the spatial organization is more mature. The viewpoint is still high, but instead of having a drop from the foreground to the river, as in the St. Matthew, the hill slopes away slowly, each stage in the fall being marked by a tree, a wall, or a projecting feature of the hill itself. In both these landscapes the use of architecture has been extended. The foreground is composed of fragments of columns and bases shown in the simplest geometrical forms and in the St. John the method is continued into the middle distance, where behind the last clump of trees we see a temple, an obelisk, and the Greek town, all as it were welded into the landscape itself."
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| Nicolas Poussin The Crucifixion 1645-46 oil on canvas Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut |
HISTORY: Commissioned by the Président Jacques de Thou before May 1644; begun by 12.xi.1645 and finished by 3.vi.1646; Jacques Stella, bequeathed by him to his niece, Claudine Bouzonnet Stella, and by her to her niece, Anne Molandier, in 1697. Blackwood sale, London 1751; Sir Lawrence Dundas sale, Greenwood, London, 1794, bought Lord Ashburnham. Not in the Ashburnham sale (Christie, London, 1850) and presumably bought back by the Dundas family, since it passed by inheritance to the Marquises of Zetland; Zetland sale, Christie, London 1934, bought Durlacher. Bought by the Wadsworth Atheneum in 1935.
"Poussin's only painting of the Crucifixion has also interesting iconographical details. As his main theme he has chosen the moment when the centurion has pierced the side of Christ and water and blood flow from the wound. This is a common symbol for salvation by Baptism in the early Fathers, but the painting contains one other feature which is very rare in the Renaissance and possibly unique in the seventeenth century. Poussin has shown in the foreground a grave opening a dead man rising from it. This is, of course, a literal rendering of Mathew 27:52, "And the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose." It is, however, also a theme that was much used in medieval art, particularly Carolingian ivories, some of which may have been known to Poussin in Rome and which are in style so classical that in the seventeenth century they were probably regarded as works of late antique art."
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| Nicolas Poussin Baptism of Christ 1648 oil on panel private collection |
HISTORY: Painted in 1648 for Jean, elder brother of Paul Fréart de Chantelou; Czernin collection, Vienna; Wildenstein, New York.
"The Baptism is unique in Poussin's later work by its [small] size, and this has affected the artist's handling which is more minute and smoother than in other paintings of the period. In its cool coloring, however, it looks forward to the paintings of the last years. . . . Curiously enough, there are no figure pieces with classical themes documented to this period."
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| Nicolas Poussin The Holy Family on the Steps 1648 oil on canvas National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
HISTORY: Painted for Hennequin de Fresne in 1648, and later in the Hôtel de Guise. Presumably in the Abbé Le Blanc sale, Lebrun, Paris, 1781; in the Comte de Vaudreuil sale, Lebrun, Paris, 1787; in the La Reynière sale, Lebrun, Paris 1793; Trumbull sale, Christie, London, 1801. The Washington picture was in the possession of the Duke of Sutherland by 1844; Duke of Sutherland sale, Christie, London, 1913, bought in; bought from the Duke by Agnew in 1947; sold to the Kress Foundation, 1949, and presented to the National Gallery.
"All but one of these Holy Families [of the late 1640s and early 1650s] show figures set against a landscape mixed with architecture in the manner usual with Poussin in this period. In only one, the Holy Family on the Steps, they are in a setting of pure architecture in which Poussin's pursuit of mathematically simple forms reaches its highest expression. The figures are placed on the steps of the Temple, cut out of the space in a series of rectangular blocks, enclosed on the right with the plainest of balustrades and leading up to a series of very simple structures, all conceived in rectangular or cylindrical blocks. The figures themselves fill a triangle, of which one side is in light and one in shadow, and which culminates in the heads of Christ and the Virgin, separated by the line of a pilaster. But the spectator's attention is attracted inevitably toward the child's head, because it is exactly enclosed in a square formed by the gray wall of the Temple behind, and immediately over it is a rectangle of bright blue sky, which, as it were, crowns it and singles it out instantly as the center of interest."
"This is one of Poussin's most compellingly beautiful paintings, one in which he has attained the aim of the classical artist that nothing could be added to it or taken away from it but for the worse. It has a finality rare even in classical art."
"The figure of Joseph at first sight recalls Andrea del Sarto's Madonna del Sacco [directly below, in an 18th-century museum copy], which must certainly have been the model for Poussin's general design of the figures in this picture; but there is a difference, for in the sixteenth-century composition Joseph is shown reading, whereas Poussin shows him holding the compasses. The basic purpose of the two artists is probably the same: to illustrate the point that Joseph was a man of learning, an idea popularized by Isidoro Isolano in his Summa de donis S. Josephi, which appeared in 1522; but Poussin is more precise than Andrea del Sarto in his symbolism and seems to imply that Joseph was master not only of theology but also of the sciences which depend on mathematics. This would, incidentally, be in harmony with the high position that he himself accorded to these branches of knowledge."
"The symbolism of the objects on the bottom step is also of interest. There is nothing unusual about the basket of apples, one of which is offered to Christ by John, but the two vessels on the right are more puzzling. Both are of gold, and the casket is of a type frequently found in representations of the three Magi, and, although the dark brown lumps in the vase and the yellowish substance on the top of the casket are difficult to identify with certainty, they both appear to be some gum deposit, and may well be frankincense and myrrh."
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| Irene Parenti Duclos after Andrea del Sarto Madonna del Sacco 1779-80 oil on canvas (copy of 1525 fresco in the Basilica della Santissima Annunziata, Florence) Galleria dell' Accademia, Florence |
"Historically, [Poussin's Holy Family on the Steps] is interesting from a further point of view. It is the first instance of Poussin's having turned to Raphael's Madonnas of the Roman period for inspiration. The pose of the Madonna and the child is taken fairly directly from the Madonna of the Fish [directly below], now in the Prado, which Poussin would probably have seen in Naples before its removal from the church of San Domenico in 1638. . . . It helps to clarify Poussin's particular form of classicism at this stage of his career to find him turning not only to the great works of classical sculpture but also to two of the most characteristic masterpieces of High Renaissance art."
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| Raphael Madonna of the Fish (Virgin and Child with Tobias, the Angel Raphael, and St Jerome) 1513-14 oil on panel, transferred to canvas Museo del Prado, Madrid |
– Anthony Blunt, Nicolas Poussin, (Phaidon Press, 1958) and The Paintings of Nicolas Poussin: Critical Catalogue (Phaidon Press, 1966)