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| Nicolas Poussin The Sacraments (first series) Baptism 1637-40 oil on canvas (sold by the 9th Duke of Rutland, ca. 1939) National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Nicolas Poussin The Sacraments (first series) Confirmation 1637-40 oil on canvas (on long-term loan from the 11th Duke of Rutland) Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge |
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| Nicolas Poussin The Sacraments (first series) Eucharist 1637-40 oil on canvas (on long-term loan from the 11th Duke of Rutland) Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge |
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| Nicolas Poussin The Sacraments (first series) Penance 1637-40 engraving by Jean Dughet, ca. 1650 (original painting lost in a fire at Belvoir Castle in 1816) Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts |
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| Nicolas Poussin The Sacraments (first series) Extreme Unction 1637-40 oil on canvas (acquired by the Fitzwilliam from the 11th Duke of Rutland in 2012) Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge |
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| Nicolas Poussin The Sacraments (first series) Ordination 1637-40 oil on canvas (sold by the 11th Duke of Rutland in 2011) Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas |
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| Nicolas Poussin The Sacraments (first series) Marriage 1637-40 oil on canvas (on long-term loan from the 11th Duke of Rutland) Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge |
HISTORY - FIRST SERIES OF SACRAMENTS: Commissioned by Cassiano dal Pozzo in the second half of the 1630's. Passed by inheritance to Cosimo Antonio dal Pozzo, grandson of Cassiano's younger brother, Carlo Antonio. In about 1725 Cosimo Antonio gave the series of Sacraments to the Marchese del Buffalo as a pledge for a debt of six thousand crowns; in 1729 Buffalo offered them for sale to Louis XV, who, however, did not buy them. By February 1730 Pozzo had redeemed his debt and recovered the pictures. Sempill, who was in Rome in 1733, and de Brosses, who was there in 1739, both saw the picture in the Palazzo Pamphili, perhaps owing to a transaction similar to that between Pozzo and Buffalo. They were presumably again recovered by Pozzo, since they passed by inheritance to his daughter, Maria Laura, who married a member of the Boccapaduli family in 1727. . . . At an unknown date they were actually sold to Sir Robert Walpole (died 1745), but the export was forbidden. Late in the 1770's or early in the 1780's the Sacraments were offered to Wellbore Ellis Agar for £1,500, but he refused to buy them. In 1784 or 1785 they were offered to the Duke of Rutland, through Byres, who arranged for copies to be made and substituted one by one for the originals. The originals arrived in London in September 1786, together with the St. John Baptising, the Duke having paid £2,000 for the eight pictures. They were then lined and restored by Biondi and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1787.
"The greater seriousness of Poussin's work at the very end of the 1630's is most clearly apparent in the Sacraments painted for Cassiano dal Pozzo. . . . In their cool coloring, their clarity of composition, and the precision of their drawing and modeling, these paintings are consistent in style with the paintings of 1638-39, and it is likely that Poussin was occupied with them during these years and, no doubt, during the early months of 1640 before he left for Paris. . . . Where the scenes take place indoors, the settings have a severity hitherto unknown in Poussin's treatment of architecture, and it is only in the two outdoor scenes – Ordination and Baptism – that Poussin introduces a pleasant relief for the eye in the splendid landscapes with which he fills the background."
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| Nicolas Poussin The Sacraments (second series) Baptism 1646 oil on canvas (on long-term loan from the 7th Duke of Sutherland) Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh |
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| Nicolas Poussin The Sacraments (second series) Confirmation 1645 oil on canvas (on long-term loan from the 7th Duke of Sutherland) Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh |
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| Nicolas Poussin The Sacraments (second series) Eucharist 1647 oil on canvas (on long-term loan from the 7th Duke of Sutherland) Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh |
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| Nicolas Poussin The Sacraments (second series) Penance 1647 oil on canvas (on long-term loan from the 7th Duke of Sutherland) Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh |
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| Nicolas Poussin The Sacraments (second series) Extreme Unction 1644 oil on canvas (on long-term loan from the 7th Duke of Sutherland) Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh |
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| Nicolas Poussin The Sacraments (second series) Ordination 1647 oil on canvas (on long-term loan from the 7th Duke of Sutherland) Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh |
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| Nicolas Poussin The Sacraments (second series) Marriage 1647-48 oil on canvas (on long-term loan from the 7th Duke of Sutherland) Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh |
HISTORY - SECOND SERIES OF SACRAMENTS: Painted for Paul Fréart de Chantelou between 1644 and 1648. It is not known to whom Chantelou bequeathed them at his death, which probably took place in 1694, but according to Nougaret they were bought secretly in 1714 by a merchant of Rotterdam, who took them to Holland. . . . The Duke of Marlborough is said to have offered 50,000 crowns for them, but the offer was refused, and they were bought by Philippe, Duke of Orléans, Regent of France, in 1716 through the agency of the Abbé (later Cardinal) Dubois. They are listed by Dubois de Saint-Gelais in his catalogue of the Orléans collection, made in 1727. Sold in 1792 with the Italian and French pictures of the Orléans collection to Walkuers; sold by him the same year to Laborde de Méréville; bought in 1798 by Bryan for the Duke of Bridgewater; passed by descent to the Earls of Ellesmere, the last of whom became the Duke of Sutherland in 1964.
"The Chantelou Sacraments differ from the early series in their atmosphere and formal construction. Though the first set is more serious in tone than Poussin's paintings of the preceding years, they seem almost lighthearted in comparison with the Chantelou versions, which have a gravity quite new in Poussin's work. This comes from the elimination of those picturesque details which enliven the earlier set but sometimes give them almost the character of domestic scenes. . . . The solemnity given by this increasing concentration on essentials and the avoidance of any distracting detail is greatly heightened by the gravity of the figures themselves. Wrapped in the long toga or pallium, they have the weight of marble statues and the dignity of ancient heroes. Their statuesque quality adds to the feeling of silence and immobility that pervades all the compositions of the second series. Formally, the innovations are also fundamental. The canvases are slightly longer in shape than in the first set, and the figures are greater in height, with the result that, whereas in the first series the figures seem often almost to float in a large though carefully defined space, in the second series they dominate the composition, and in many cases the space of the picture is defined by them as much as by the lines of the architecture."
"As is to be expected, the change in theme, in feeling, and in space composition was accompanied by a change in technique and color. The paintings are still executed on the same principles as in the earlier period, that is to say, by working on a dark brown or reddish ground from dark to light, but the way in with the technique is applied is quite new. In the paintings of the earlier thirties Poussin used abrupt transitions from very thinly scumbled shadows to lights dashed in with thick, free touches of liquid paint, producing effects of marked contrast. Then, at the end of the thirties, the pigment becomes thinner and is laid on with small touches, without flourish and with more even distribution of lights and shades, and so of pigment. In the the 1640's the paint becomes yet thinner, the touch even more regular, and the distribution of light more steady. At the same time the palette becomes more economical: earth greens, ultramarine, vermilion, lakes, yellow ocher, and occasionally Naples yellow, all used almost pure, without the broken effects of the earlier painting. And so, as Poussin's style becomes more subject to rational control, his technique grows more deliberate and his use of light more sober."
"It is no wonder that Poussin's contemporaries should have regarded the second series of Sacraments as the purest expression of his conception of painting. To mid-twentieth-century eyes the strange poetical art of his last years may seem more moving, but the Sacraments certainly embody the artist's rationalist art as do no other paintings. Their graveness is in conformity with the dignity of ancient Rome, which the seventeenth-century honnête homme admired and to some extent felt that he could emulate; their treatment of the passions is in accordance with what contemporary critics considered a fundamental aim in all the arts; and their clarity suited a society whose taste had been profoundly influenced by the methods of Descartes."
– Anthony Blunt, Nicolas Poussin, (Phaidon Press, 1958) and The Paintings of Nicolas Poussin: Critical Catalogue (Phaidon Press, 1966)