Art History Today

PCP continues…

An enigmatic two-headed fragment that did the rounds as a Poussin, until the attribution hit a slight snag.  Details here.

PCP. Next Entry: Northampton copy of Golden Calf.

So we move to Northamptonshire from Leicestershire, to consider a copy of Poussin’s troubled masterpiece in London- The Adoration of the Golden Calf.

Poussin Leicester Holy Family

The next entry on the Poussin Catalogue Project is up. This time I’m considering whether a Holy Family in the Leicester Art Gallery was painted by the master.

 

A Poussin Recovered and a “Poussin” Discredited.

The genuine article.

I don’t usually post twice on the same day- but it was great to hear via Bendor about the recovery of the stolen Poussin Midas.

Meanwhile, that other “Poussin” Baptism, along with the other recovered “old masters” is the subject of  a short article in the Art Newspaper, “Experts have doubts about the “Poussin” and other old masters seized in Rome.” Sorry, it’s not on their website. I only heard via a press release sent to Warwick University. Sorry again- but I don’t know how to get the text off the PDF.

Both Bendor and I are quoted on the “Van Dyck” and “Poussin” respectively. What I glean from this article is that the carabinieri are refusing to comment on claims about the worthlessness of this hoard; and the Superintendent of Rome museums, Rossella Vodert says through Il Giornale dell’Arte that  “the attributions of several of the works are uncertain and need to be verified.” Several! They all look dodgy to me. As for the Baptism, no expertise needed there- it’s a Poussin no-brainer! I’m not reassured by what I hear. A few posts back I identified an 18th century painting attributed to Poussin in the Capitoline, which was obviously a misattribution.

More on Poussin

Just in case you don’t read comments I’m putting up a great response to the Red Sea post by a fellow Poussin scholar, Stephen Conrad. Amongst Stephen’s insights are mention of the “reconstruction of the pillar of cloud” to the right of the picture,  far more significant than the changed figure I commented on yesterday. And amen to the possible reunification of the London Adoration of the Golden Calf and the Red Sea, which would be the culmination of this meticulous restoration. How I long for that day!

“As a fellow Poussinist I have enjoyed reading your blogs, and look forward to your 'Poussin Project' but I think, if we are to be at all critical of the conservation of the Crossing of the Red Sea by the NGV, the more important change to the paint surface of this very large canvas than the head reversal, is what appears to be the reconstruction of the pillar of cloud at the extreme right of the picture. Just before this picture was sent to the 1960 Paris exhibition, where it was reunited with it pendant in the National Gallery in London for the first and last time since they were split up for the first time in their history in 1945, the picture was cleaned (in Melbourne?), when it was discovered that the pillar of cloud (not fire, though it may be pinkish in tone, judging from the few glimpses in the online film clip of the newly unveiled restored picture) was so damaged that it was covered up - as Blunt noted in 1966. A study of the Gantrel engraving (on which engraver Wildenstein remarks that he worked after copies not originals, in this case apparently one by Le Brun) may show a face turned round, but there is no pillar of cloud - at least in his tiny reproduction; but the fact that the far more accomplished Baudet made the engraving of the pendant in London, not Gantrel, is interesting, and of course has had consequences for the dating of the work and may be evidence that Poussin did not work on them at exactly the same time - or it may not! In any case, it is greatly to be hoped that the NGV will publish a monograph on the newly restored picture (as, for example, Lyon did when it acquired the 1651 Flight into Egypt) so that the present more advanced technical restoration may be judged against that of 1960, and subsequent photographs until now. Ideally, we can only hope that the National Gallery in London (which cannot lend its picture due to the vandalism it suffer in the early 1980s) may request and be granted the chance to exhibit the pair together for the first time in over 50 years, so that contemporary scholars and the public unable to get to Melbourne may have a chance to study the two pendants. As with the London gallery's restoration of the Leonardo Madonna of the Rocks and the Louvre's cleaning of Leonardo's St Anne, the lengthy time taken by the NGV to clean this important and sadly little known Poussin (simply because of distance) speaks of far more careful conservation work undertaken than in 1960, and publication of the entire process is essential to assure scholars and the public that all changes made to the paint surface are informed and well-judged. It is unlikely that the NGV would not do so, and your blog is certainly right to ask the question.”

There’s an excellent descriptive analysis of the painting by Mark Shepheard over on the Melbourne Art Network.

And finally, here’s my first entry on the Poussin Connoisseurship Project, on the Birmingham copy of Christ Healing the Blind. See what you think- and feel free to comment.

 

Restoration and Reversal

Perhaps this belongs on the PCP site- news of the completion of the restoration of Poussin’s Crossing of the Red Sea, a painting in National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne.

This report from ABC news reproduces two photos of a section of the painting: one section before cleaning; another after restoration. You’ll see the back of the head of a young man, which according to the curators in this report was Poussin’s correction to a face he originally painted but didn’t like. They base this observation on the study of related visual sources such as engravings and replicas. In this interview the curators are talking about a “new look” to Poussin’s painting, which always rings alarm bells with me, not to mention raising the question of what the paintings looked like back in the 17th century- the of issue Poussin’s original intentions. To quote from ABC News:

Crossing section in its current state after restoration.	Crossing section before cleaning.

Senior conservator Carl Villis says the "new look" of the painting actually brings the painting much closer to its original appearance.

For example the face of one of the figures in the painting was visible and now only the back of the head is seen.

"He [Poussin] did originally paint the face but decided he didn't like it and covered it up," Mr Villis said.

"The replica had the face turned round the other way as did an engraving and a tapestry that were also made.

"So we knew that this head was actually supposed to be turned round the other way."

Of course I knew about this restoration- but not the specifics of the cleaning, and certainly not this head alteration; but now the PCP has been launched, it seems appropriate to refer to this restoration again. As to Melbourne’s own “Poussin Project”, while I respectfully hear what the curators and restorers are saying about the head in engravings seemingly conveying Poussin’s original intention, that turned figure doesn’t gell with me. It’s not really a Poussin motif.

To be fair to the Australian curators, I’d have to study some sources in relation to the painting before judging their claims about Poussin’s original ideas for this figure, and one could start with a copy by Le Brun after Poussin’s original, from which many engravings derive.  I won't say anything more about this case- maybe return to it on the PCP in the future. However, the issue of cleaning, restoration, and the original state of Poussin’s work will certainly figure in my first painting on the PCP, which is in a state of soon-come. 

Here’s a reproduction of the whole painting pre-restoration. It’s not a very good one- but it gives you an idea of the composition and its figuration. I’ve had this in my files for ages, and in it you can see the figure in black looking out, at centre left. Of course this has been reversed and we now see the back of his head.

Nicolas Poussin, The Crossing of the Red Sea, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, c 1634-5, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, oil on canvas, 154 x 210 cm.

Poussin Connoisseurship Project

" As long as our school follows in your footsteps, it will be esteemed in spite of its faults; when it ceases to appreciate you, art will fall into decline.”

As Bendor said yesterday, I’ve started another blog devoted to Poussin matters alone: mainly connoisseurship issues, inspired by GAP, PCF and others.

You can access it here, or via the link on the sidebar.

The aims of the project are briefly explained over there, as well as the format I’ll be using; the first entry on the Birmingham copy after Poussin’s Christ and the Blind will be up in a few days.  Just need to check some more sources.

 

A Puzzling Picture in the Rijksmuseum.

Cardinal Borromeo distributing Charity in a Landscape with Ruins, attributed to Henry Ferguson, or Hendrick Vergazon, dated, 1700-1720, oil on canvas, 130 cm x 193 cm,

Some paintings are real conundrums, like this one that turned up in a Facebook discussion between me and some other art lovers last week. A colleague in Amsterdam, Maaike Dirkx, unearthed this intriguing, not to say baffling picture from the depths of the Rijksmuseum. I’ll let Maaike describe it:

“This painting poses all sorts of intriguing questions. It shows the saint Carlo Borromeo standing in an idealised classicist landscape next to an enormous marble sarcophagus showing in relief an adoration of the shepherds. According to the Rijksmuseum this scene was based on a painting that was attributed to Raphael since c.1635. I haven't been able to find it - suggestions are appreciated!

Borromeo points to the relief while addressing two men, one of them a dean. A crippled man sits next to him in front of the sarcophagus. On the left, in the foreground, we see the Holy Family with the Christ Child riding on donkeys, accompanied by a young man. In the centre a blind boy and a blind girl cross a stream. To the right, in the middle background, a richly dressed young mean gives alms to a group of beggars.”

Flight into Egypt group.

Maaike brought me in because I’ve spent a lot of time looking at 17^th century French art. Looking at this, I could immediately detect a whole spectrum of different influences- not just French. The landscape suggests knowledge of Nicolas Poussin, as does the Holy Family (a Flight into Egypt group) also reminiscent of the master. I could also detect that this painter knew a certain genre of painting that placed ruins like sarcophagi, tombs, and objects of antique interest in a landscapes, much favoured by patrons in Poussin’s circle. Known for this tendency were minor masters who imitated Poussin, like Pierre Lemaire and Pierre Patel by placing Holy Families next to antiquities, in order to show the overthrow of paganism by Christ. Something of that appears to be going on in this picture, though it’s clumsily done. Why place a river god (the Tiber?) with a cross and orb over a relief of the Adoration? It’s not exactly an elegant way of showing this supplanting of paganism by Christianity, unless it means something else. Back to the visual sources. Other elements like the bivouac group on the right occur in 17^th century French art. Was this an 18^th century French artist re-working the artistic traditions of his countrymen? How wrong can you be? Maaike again:

Of the painter, Henry Ferguson, or Vergazon, little is known, except that he was born in The Hague in 1655 or 1665 and died in Toulouse in1730. A painter named H. Ferguson is recorded in the guild at The Hague for 1712-1719. Ferguson worked in London before 1712 where Walpole speaks of a Hendrick Vergazon, who assisted in Kneller's workshop and who painted some landscapes himself.

So, Vergazon or Ferguson, or whatever you want to call him, is mentioned in Walpole and was in the employ of the famous English portrait painter, Sir Godfrey Kneller. I’m afraid that I know nothing about English portraiture (hello Bendor), but there’s tons of Kneller on the Public Catalogue Foundation website.

Adoration of the Shepherds, supposedly based after a Raphael composition known since 1635.

As if all this isn’t confusing enough, we have the little matter of why the artist chose to place a massive sculptural relief of the Adoration slap bang in the middle of it all! According to the Rijksmuseum, this particular scene is based on a painting that “has been attributed to Raphael since 1635.” I’m still giving that matter some thought, thinking about 17th century French versions of this scene. My working theory at the moment is that this Adoration isn’t by Raphael at all –that’s a new one, start a debate about a Raphael attribution based on a picture in a picture! I think this is more of a “mix and match” Raphael- hell, the whole picture is mix and match- and the studied elegance of the Adoration group suggests the influence of Italian mannerism, like Parmigianino or Perino del Vaga, or the School of Fontainebleau.  Relying on my visual memory, I can’t recall an exact Raphael scene like this, but I’ll have to do further checks.

Cardinal Borromeo and the distribution of charity.

To call this picture “eclectic” is the understatement of the year. What painter would place an elegantly looking figure- who would look OK in a Kneller portrait, come to think of it- next to a group of women who look like they’ve strayed from a Poussin or a Le Brun composition? What mind-set could produce a picture that is structurally, thematically, on all levels, uncoordinated?

In summary, this is what we know about Henry Ferguson.

He was born in the Hague in 1655, or 1665. He was probably a member of the Guild at the The Hague between 1712-1719. It’s here that he must have learnt more about 17th century French landscape and religious painting; there  are substantial links between Poussin and Co and the landscape painters in the Netherlands in the early 18th century- but I’ll leave that for another post.

In his Anecdotes of Painting, Horace Walpole speaks of a Hendrick Vergazon who works in the atelier of Sir Godfrey Kneller. Walpole’s description is worth quoting as it tallies with the Rijksmuseum picture:

HENRY VERGAZON.

“A Dutch painter of runs and landscapes, with which he sometimes was called to adorn the back-grounds of Kneller’s pictures, though his colouring was reckoned too dark. He painted a few small portraits, and died in France.”

Interestingly, a genre picture attributed to Ferguson was sold at Sotheby's in 2010. The traditional attribution was to William Gowe Ferguson, his father.  Martin Eidelberg has now returned it to the son, Henry. Eidelberg has a very nice site on Watteau, his main area of expertise; he has written an article on Ferguson, which I’ve yet to track down. Perhaps for that Poussin and Dutch landscapists post?

Some Problems in Poussin Connoisseurship via the Google Art Project.

Poussin gallery at GAP

Although I’m sure that this wasn’t in the minds of the people behind the Google Art Project (GAP),it may turn out to be quite a useful tool for connoisseurs. For one thing it makes a lot of obscure pictures visible, some of which I have never encountered as a Poussin scholar; so GAP throws up opportunities for considering, and in some cases re-considering some connoisseurial  problems in Poussin. It also highlights some of the problems in using reproductions to judge colour and style, a huge topic which I can’t do justice to here. Maybe another post sometime?

The main reason for this post is that out of the 36 high-resolution in the Poussin archive of the GAP, a few trouble me. I hasten to add this isn’t a criticism of GAP  whose resolutions are immensely useful to professional art historians like myself, which allow us to “drill” down to the detail of a picture. At the same time I’m a Poussin scholar and I feel duty-bound to highlight certain difficult pictures to anyone using the tool.

Capitoline Museum, Rome.

Capitoline Museum, Rome.

Here is one that has to be rejected, no doubt about it. The Camillus and the Schoolmaster of the Falerii. looks like an eighteenth-century pastiche of a famous Poussin subject known through several versions- see below. Camillus the Roman general punishes a schoolmaster who sought to betray his pupils by offering them as hostages; Camillus is indignant at this perfidy and has the miscreant stripped naked and beaten back to the Falerii by his charges. I’ve never seen this version before- and now unfortunately I have. I have no idea why the Capitoline have labelled this picture- here seen in situ- a Poussin. Like many of his paintings of the late 1630s, Poussin creates a firm, relief-like picture that usually unfolds from left to right. The colours, the poses, especially the foppish gait of Camillus have absolutely nothing to do with Poussin, or indeed the 1630s. Instead of thrashing the disgraced schoolmaster out of the village, the children seem to be leading him out to a picnic.Compare this with one of Poussin’s stern versions shown here.

Poussin, Camillus and the Schoolmaster of the Falerii, Louvre, Paris, c, 1637, oil on canvas, 252 x 268 cm.

I should advise the Capitoline to look for their painter in early 18th century France, a rococo painter with classical pretensions- but no means of putting them into practice. Let us not look but pass on.   

Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio.

Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio.

Then there are paintings that have always been problematic. An excellent example of this is a painting at Toledo, a mythological or poetic work which traditionally provoked debate until everybody lost interest in the work. Nobody can even agree on what the subject is, let alone who painted it. Is it “Dido and Aeneas”, “Mars and Venus”, or “Rinaldo and Armida”? It’s on GAP as “Mars and Venus”, though there’s no conclusive proof that it is that subject. Checking Christopher Wright’s 1984 catalogue raisonné, he says that it fits neatly into Poussin’s development and places it in the late 1630s, though traditionally it’s been dated to the early 1630s or even 1624. Leaving dating aside for the moment, let’s consider what we have here.

Mars and Venus, or Dido and Aeneas, or Rinaldo and Armida, Toledo Museum of Art, c. 1638-9 (?), oil on canvas, 158 x 190 cm, right-hand side autograph, left-hand side over painted?

We have a painting that may be 60-70% by one of three other painters, and 30% by Poussin himself. This view might not be as bizarre as it sounds: three famous Poussin scholars (Blunt, Thuillier and Wild) attributed the work to three different painters, and Wright says that the museum, (presumably  hedging its bets) attributes it to three other painters- and Poussin. There’s no discussion of that on the GAP entry, nor on the museum’s website, though more information, or links to more information might come in time. The entry reads:

“In a lush landscape, Venus, Roman goddess of love and beauty, is attended by her handmaidens, the Three Graces, while Mars, the god of war, stands enraptured by the sight. The figures are inspired by Nicolas Poussin's study of ancient classical sculpture. He derived his theme from classical literature, combining the Toilet of Venus, in which Venus makes her morning preparations while gazing into a mirror, with Mars "disarmed" or "unmanned" by Venus—a symbol of love's power to vanquish war. To illustrate this idea, Poussin shows Mars's weapons and helmet cast aside, while he holds his shield to serve as Venus's mirror. Its oval with her reflected image ingeniously links the two principles and marks the change in pictorial key from the quiet, coolly lit group of women composed in profile-like relief sculpture to the warmer tones of Mars's shadowed figure and the flickering movement and lighting of the two cupids. The landscape sustains this shift, the stately trees and constricted foreground opening out to a spacious vista toward snowcapped mountains. By the time he painted Mars and Venus, Poussin had lived some ten years in Rome since arriving there from France in 1624. Rome was to be his permanent home. Poussin's clients were cultivated men who shared his intellectual interests and valued the harmony he achieved between poetic content and rigorous clarity in his paintings of mythological and religious subjects. Poussin absorbed ideas from many sources, including the monuments of antiquity and the work of Renaissance painters Raphael, Giulio Romano, and Titian. But from the force of Poussin's artistic personality and his astonishing ability to invent solutions appropriate to each subject's mood came an artistic language, both incisive and sensuous, that broke new ground.”

Well, let’s assume it is “Mars and Venus” for the moment, though it seems an iconographic mishmash for Poussin, completely unlike his usual clarity in dealing with subject matter. The male figure and putto look Poussinesque, but they don’t seem that well-painted. And then there’s the landscape whose colours don’t seem typical of Poussin: that deep indigo seems uncharacteristic of his palette. At the same time I should stress that I’ve never actually seen this picture, as it’s seldom exhibited because of doubts over the authorship, and I’m having to study reproductions. It was exhibited in 1960 and here is a newspaper article recording its passage to Paris in that year! The river god in the water, if that’s what he is, seems summarily painted, though I will concede that the pose is found in other of Poussin’s works. The ground seems to be showing through in large parts of the painting, though they might to be due to paint loss- a technical report might help here. For the purposes of balance I’m going to quote Christopher’s Wright’s comments on the picture:

“It is difficult to see why there should have been such a conflict over the status of this picture. As Four painters are currently involved and each one advanced by a distinguished specialist there is reasonable certainty that at least three of them are wrong (Blunt initially accepted the picture in 1960, but re-assigned it to the “Hovingham Master” in 1966; Thuillier said it had been painted by Charles-Alphonse Dufresnoy; finally, Wild rejected it and gave it to Poussin’s friend, Jacques Stella). In considering the old attribution to Poussin the picture fits quite easily into the artist’s development in the later 1630s (on stylistic grounds, this makes sense to me, but only the right-hand side) and the whole of the right hand side of the composition is close to the Toronto Venus Presenting Arms to Aeneas.  The problems arise with the treatment of the naked figures on the left which seem far too realistic and even anecdotal for Poussin. Careful examination of the picture reveals that they may well have undergone some later “improvements”. It is hoped that a cleaning of the picture will establish this hypothesis (I do not know the condition of this picture nor have I seen a technical report on it, so it’s impossible to prove or refute this. Has the picture been cleaned since Wright made his observations?). (Wright, no. 94, 183)

Earlier in his catalogue Wrights has this to say:

“The Toledo picture has been subject to many doubts. It was originally thought to be one of Poussin’s early surviving pictures, then because it did not seem to fit into the artist’s early development, it was rejected altogether by many authorities. The right hand half of the picture clearly fits into the style familiar from the mid 1630s (no argument there). It is not dissimilar in treatment to the work in Toronto. The problem arises for the grouping of four nude female figures on the left which seem both in drawing and composition to be quite unlike Poussin. It is just possible that they may have been re-painted at a later date and it is hoped that a future cleaning of the painting will resolve the problems.! (Wright, 60-1)

As Wright says, the real problem is the left-hand group of three women who seem entirely untypical of Poussin. The strange and infelicitous admixture of large hips, small breasts and thinly tapered legs seems to indicate a different hand here. I would say that look mannered as well as realistic. Also, the kneeling woman is a direct quotation from a Crouching Venus, and Poussin doesn’t make his antique quotations so conspicuous; nor to my knowledge does he use that source in his art. So, if more than half isn’t stylistically typical of Poussin- though Wright still doesn’t reject it- then I’d be uncomfortable giving it totally to Poussin. I can see why Wright is happy to see it as a Poussin, but that left-hand female group is so at variance with Poussin that  I can’t comfortably accept it as autograph. On the other hand I can’t completely reject, as parts of it seem consistent with Poussin. What a dilemma!

	Poussin, Pan and Syrinx, Staatliche Gemaldergalerie, Dresden, oil on canvas, 106.5 x 82 cm.

In his catalogue, Wright reproduces it next to the Pan and Syrinx (Dresden) and you can immediately see what Blunt called a “blonde” colour that is typical of of a group of pictures in the late 1630s. In Wright’s catalogue, the colour of the Toledo painting is closer to this “blonde” group, not the GAP colours, including that horrible blue. Sorry, my scanner is broken so I can’t put up an image of the reproduction in Wright, but within this group fall pictures like the St Rita of Cascia (Dulwich), St Margaret (Turin), Pan and Syrinx (Dresden), Venus and Aeneas (Toronto), Rinaldo and Armida (Bode Museum, Berlin). Maybe this case highlights the danger of using reproductions, especially digital to make assessments about art, though there’s a tradition of using them in connoisseurship. Here’s an excellent article that explores the topic of colour in museum photographs and the problems when using them.

If I compare the Toledo canvas with the Pan and Syrinx, I might accept a tentative attribution, though that depends on working from Wright’s reproduction. If the museum colour is right, then the picture would not fit into the late 1630s, and indeed we should put it back to the early 1630s, when works with similar colours were done. However, the problem remains of certain figures and motifs in the Toledo picture consistent with autograph works from that period.

I’m still deeply troubled by the non-Poussin elements in the Toledo canvas, and of course there is the colour problem, which is going to be difficult to resolve without me actually seeing the painting. Some of my Poussin colleagues have written about the Toledo painting assuming it is totally autograph, but I couldn’t until I’d satisfied myself about these doubts. I have e.mailed the museum with my concerns, but so far no answer. It would be good to hear from them in order to see if Wright’s hypothesis held water, which I think it might.

Dulwich Picture Gallery.

Dulwich Picture Gallery, Dulwich, London.

Then there’s an interesting cluster of paintings at Dulwich. Firstly, a canvas of putti or children playing, which I vaguely know about. “Putti in a Landscape” has been labelled “17th Century French”, though it’s still in the Poussin section. This has a bearing on the last problem because if Blunt saw a Poussin picture with non-Poussin elements, then he would invent another master to explain that incongruity. Not that he needed to as there  are lots of candidates for copyists after Poussin’s Bacchic children, but Blunt memorably invented one painter called the “Master of the Clumsy Children.” Then there were painters in Rome like Podesta who is known to have copied Poussin’s bacchanals of children; still more enigmatic artists like the aforementioned “Hovingham Master” who’s crossed my path from time to time. I don’t know who painted the Dulwich putti, but this cannot be attributed to Poussin: the putti are badly drawn, no anatomical realism at all.

There’s a mysterious canvas called “Landscape” which could mean anything. It has figures lounging in leafy groves or strolling through the landscape, which you find in the artist’s work in the 1640s, but that kind of landscape was much imitated. The artists’ brother-in-law, Gaspar Dughet might be a better candidate than Nicolas himself. This vague landscape is in even worse condition, unable to penetrate beneath the layers of dirt and possibly over painting, but not by the master.

Lastly, there’s a  kind of Bacchic family group consisting of satyr, nymph and putti, very common in Poussin’s oeuvre. This picture is a deplorable condition, and if you zoom in you can see the craquelure and dirt, and god knows what else. But even though this hasn’t been restored, I think there’s no doubt we’re dealing with an imitator of Poussin’s Bacchic groups here.  All these three were in the Bourgeois bequest, but they’ve hardly attracted much interest, hardly surprising given their woeful state.

Albertina, Vienna

There are only two Poussin drawings on GAP, one of which I know is autograph as I’ve inspected it closely on the study table at Windsor. The other of a broken silver birch tree, or two trees, in the Albertina, perturbs me, though I have to say I haven’t seen the sheet itself. There are crude transitions between different densities of the wash; form isn’t modelled well, and frankly the application of the wash isn’t typical of Poussin. It appeared in an exhibition of 1984 curated by the late Konrad Oberhuber who actually used to work at the Albertina until he moved to the USA. As Oberhuber notes in that catalogue, it was rejected from the early 1960s onwards, given to Gaspar Dughet. Only Wild supported the attribution to Poussin in 1980, and  Oberhuber was emboldened by this to present it as a Poussin drawing of around 1630. The trouble is his argument depends on comparing it to a whole cluster of drawings which manifestly aren't by NP. Who’s it by? Well, we could maybe accept Gaspar, but it might be too early for him; Jean Frangois Millet (possibly); Jean Lemaire, who would be working with Poussin at this time. There is also the appropriately named “Silver Birch Master” a landscape painter invented by Blunt in 1950. It used to be thought that a painting in the National Gallery, a Landscape with A Cowherd, was by the SBM, but Blunt changed his mind and re-attributed to the young Gaspar in 1980. Although there have been attempts to move it back to Poussin, it has stayed with his brother-in-law, which makes perfect sense to me. The attribution also helps to elucidate the Vienna drawing because the treatment of the trees in the London painting are similar. So I think both drawing and painting are the work of the young Gaspar Dughet.

Maybe all this highlights the need for professional art historians and specialists to consult with the GAP on issues of attribution and connoisseurship, though overall it’s thumbs up for a very useful resource. 

Sources.

Anthony Blunt, 'Poussin Studies V: ‘The Silver Birch Master’. Burlington Magazine, 92 (1950), pp. 69-73.

Anthony Blunt, Poussin Studies XIII: ‘Early Falsifications of Poussin’, Burlington Magazine, 104, (1962), pp. 486- 498.

Konrad Oberhuber, exh. cat., Kimbell  Art Museum, Fort Worth Poussin: The Early Years in Rome, (New York, 1988).

Humphrey Wine, The Seventeenth-Century French Paintings in the National Gallery, (New Haven and London, 2001).

Christopher Wright, Poussin Paintings: A Catalogue Raisonné, (Jupiter, 1984).

Toledo entry on painting. http://classes.toledomuseum.org:8080/emuseum/view/objects/asitem/117/12

37 Masters?

Following up on the report of the Rome heist recovery, here’s a article from that fount of art history knowledge- the Telegraph.

The paintings include Portrait of a Knight by Van Dyck, Christ on the Cross by Rubens and The Baptism of Christ by Nicolas Poussin, a 17th century French artist who spent most of his working life in Rome.

Lesser known works include an exquisite painting of the Madonna and Child by the 13th century artist Berlinghiero Berlinghieri, who came from Lucca in Tuscany, and a work by a student of Caravaggio.

Two of the masterpieces may have been painted by Rubens and El Greco, although the attributions are yet to be confirmed.

"Rarely does one recover such a large quantity of works of such artistic importance," said Rossella Vodret, an expert from the ministry of culture.

Five other art works, which were stolen at the same time, are still unaccounted “

In what universe were such badly executed and conceived canvases painted by Rubens and his student Van Dyck?  I’m starting to wonder if the press have mis-represented or mis-quoted Vodret- time will tell..

If anybody has come across a list of the 37 works, then I’d be interested to see it. Most of all I’d love to see a copy of the auction catalogue in which these paintings appeared as Poussin et al.