Poussin Connoisseurship Project

4. The Adoration of the Golden Calf (San Francisco pastiche).

The Adoration of the Golden Calf

Oil on Canvas, 99.4 x 128.6 cm, possibly 1626-27.

SAN FRANCISCO, M. H. de Young Memorial Museum. (Click on this link for the zoom function on the Kress Coll. site).

Provenance.

First published by Johnstone in 1919, but the picture described here as a “logical design” seems to bear no relation to the clumsily conceived picture in San Francisco

According to Blunt in 1966, this is not the National Gallery version because its recorder, Sandart, does not mention a pendant, which he would have had he been referring to the London version; that was a pendant to the Melbourne Israelites Crossing the Red Sea. Blunt thought the San Francisco work was the painting mentioned in the van Biesum sale in Rotterdam in the 18^th century, and was probably seen by Richardson in the Flinck collection, Amsterdam, before 1722. A painting of the same subject was in the Dufresne sale, Amsterdam, (22/8/1770). In 1919, the San Franciscan picture was with the Sackville Gallery, London, and was said previously to have belonged to the Earl of Harewood, and then to have been in the Estate of Rudolph Bottenweiser. After being sold by the Sackville it was in the E. May collection, Paris. Later it was with Heinemann, New York, from whom it was bought by the Kress Foundation and presented to the museum in 1952.

Related Works.

Fragment of a version of the Adoration of the Golden Calf painted for an unnamed Neapolitan patron, Mrs John Booth, Manor Park, Southwell, Nottinghamshire, 1627-9, now on temporary loan to Dulwich Picture Gallery. This picture will be dealt with the next entry. 

Engravings.

Jean-Baptiste de Poilly, (1669-1728). In a note to his 1995 article, Keazor says that in 1960 “Blunt ruled out both drawing and engraving as proofs of authenticity by hypothesising that the painting could have been created by a follower on the basis of Poussin's drawing, while Poilly could have transmitted this early falsification under the name of Poussin.”

Drawings

Windsor, Royal Library, R11884: Verso of the Intervention of the Sabine Women, black chalk. Blunt disputed the subject on the recto and said that it was the Victory of the Israelites over the Midianites. Clayton maintains the recto is the Sabine intervention.

Description and Theme

See this entry on the Northampton copy of the London version for description of subject.  

Technical Notes.

According to Johnstone, the paint is deleicately laid on over a red bole ground, which shows through in places. Though this might be consistent with Poussin's early technique, including the harmonisation of colours in the Venetian manner, it does not prove authorship. The technical examination has not been helped by what Keazor called " a somewhat harsh cleaning” in 1957. That restoration campaign took away the last digit of the date. In 1988, Oberhuber described the picture “either a copy of an important painting by Poussin of around 1629/30... or as the very damaged and rubbed original.” See below for a discussion about attribution. In 1977, Eisler observed that the painting was “badly preserved,” which owes much to the disastrous cleaning of 1957. 

Additional Remarks.

Dating.

There has been a problem with dating. Blunt says the date on the painting originally read “N.P.1629,” but Martin Davies thought it was 1626. According to Blunt, in 1966, this view was “generally accepted.” As Clayton explained in 1994, the last digit disappeared during cleaning in 1957. Clayton is also right to point out that none of Poussin’s early paintings are dated; therefore the date on the San Francisco Golden Calf might be “totally spurious.” It's certainly the case that Poussin tends to sign his name on objects in works of the 1630s, not in the previous decade. Based on an analysis of space composition in Poussin’s compositions of 1630, Clayton judges that the de Young painting was done in 1630, and if the “inscription on the San Francisco painting had any basis in fact, it presumably read NP 1629.”

Sources and Influences.

Originally, Blunt had no hesitation in accepting the San Francisco picture as autograph; it was considered authentic in his CR of 1966 (no. 25). However, it is difficult to understand why Blunt would grant authorship to Poussin of such an unbalanced and inept composition in the first place. It is true that some figures resemble Poussin’s own; but against this must be set the uncharacteristic colour, the hard metallic tone, and the dry handling. This seems to be a jumble of different artistic sources such as Mantegna, Titian, and various others. The altar boy with his candelabrum seems a reminiscence of figures from Mantegna’s Triumphs of Ceasar, "The Elephants." while the urn on the drapery is obviously purloined from Titian’s Bacchus and Ariadne.  Poussin never operates in this way; if he borrows a quotation, he assimilates it into his own pictorial language. PCP had come to these conclusions about sources independently of Keazor, though the latter notes that the Titian derived-urn on drapery also features in Poussin Lamentation over the Dead Christ (Munich) of the early 1630s. Poussin also used the motif on the London Triumph of Silenus, which as a very problematic picture merits another entry. While we’re still on the source hunt, Keazor identifies the small jug with leaves stuck in as originating in the famous Roman frieze from the Temple of Neptune, displaying instruments used for sacrifice and published in a mid-sixteenth-century engraving by Nicolas Beatrizet in Antonio Lafrery's Speculum Romana Magnificentiae. Keazor also observes that Poussin “has followed quite closely the form of the metal oinochoe (vase) with a laurel branch, third from the right in the second row of the engraving, as well as the two plates”. The relevance of all these influences is whether this erudition and archaeological detail supports the view that this composition is Poussin’s own. That obviously brings us to the question of attribution. 

 Attribution.

The San Francisco picture was first rejected by Rosenberg in 1973, and as Keazor notes, Blunt welcomed with much relief the suggestion of putting this weak picture outside Poussin’s oeuvre. Blunt noted in the same year “I have always found this picture distasteful, and difficult to fit into the early period of Poussin.” Most Poussin scholars favoured the rejection; but in 1988, characteristically Oberhuber went his own way and tried to optimistically slot it into Poussin’s early development, though whether he saw it as autograph or copy is unclear.   Oberhuber’s argument partially depends upon the resemblance of the kneeling man in the foreground’s similarity to a follower in the Virgin Appearing to St James (Louvre, about 1631). This figure with arched back he sees as Poussin’s attempt to create an architectonic emphasis in the Golden Calf, but even accepting the similarity of the two figures, the whole composition lacks Poussin’s careful construction and deliberation. There is a world of difference from the sophisticated baroque of the St James to the mix and match crudity of the San Francisco picture.

There is some debate about whether the San Francisco painting is a copy or a pastiche. It was in 1973 that Blunt and Rosenberg started to call the painting an old fake, or pastiche; and it was Rosenberg who first attributed the work to the Neapolitan painter, Andrea di Lione. Blunt had argued in a much earlier article that Andrea visited Rome and saw Poussin’s neo-Venetian works from the late 1620s. In 1982 Rosenberg listed the San Francisco picture as “a copy of a lost original”, a view that has been strengthened by the existence of a matching composition on a drawing at Windsor. See Clayton’s remarks above. The copy issue will have to remain in abeyance, but PCP is in accord with Wright who in 1984 called the painting a “curiously incompetent picture,” more likely a pastiche, which is a view Wright presumably maintained in his revised CR of 2007? It is almost beyond doubt that Andrea is the author of the San Francisco painting; this artist has a tendency to appropriate motifs from Poussin’s art and insert them into his own. A key issue here is whether Andrea abstracted them from an original composition by Poussin from the late 1620s, or other paintings with similar motifs in the next decade. The urn appears in autograph paintings of the early to mid-1630s; could Andrea have been quoting from those?

For convenience, here are the attribution views of scholars (+ = acceptance, – = rejection)

Blunt, 1966 + (date reads 1626 not 1629 as previously thought).

Badt, 1969 + (1626).

Blunt, 1973 –

Rosenberg, –  1973 (Andrea di Lione).

Thuillier 1974, – (good copy of lost original of 1629).

Eisler 1977 + (1626, badly preserved).

Wild, 1980 – (copy of work by Poussin of 1629).

Rosenberg, 1982 – (pastiche).

Wright, 1984, – (pastiche).

Oberhuber, 1988. It is difficult to determine Oberhuber’s view. He labels it “possibly an excellent copy”, but does not say in his catalogue whether it is after Poussin, or autograph. In his discussion, it “remains a valid document for the development of Poussin’s work.” This was the view of Thuillier in 1974. Whether one should argue Poussin’s development on the basis of what seems a variant or pastiche is an issue that didn’t seem to trouble Oberhuber too much.

Wright, 2007 -? (pastiche).

PCP, 2012 – (pastiche by Andrea di Lione). This corresponds to Rosenberg’s position of 1982, and Wright’s of 1984 and 2007.

Literature.

Catalogues

Anthony Blunt, The Paintings of Nicolas Poussin: A Critical Catalogue, (London,1966), no. 26.

Martin Clayton, Poussin: Works on Paper, (London, 1995), no. 22.

C Eisler, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection, European Schools Excluding Italian, (Oxford, 1977), no. K1876, pp. 269ff.

Konrad Oberhuber, Poussin: The Early Years in Rome, (Fort Worth, 1988), no. 82.

Christopher Wright, Poussin Paintings: A Catalogue Raisonné, (London, 1984), no. 86.

Christopher Wright, Poussin Paintings: A Catalogue Raisonné, (revised, London, 2007), need to check.

Other Literature.

Anthony Blunt, “A Poussin-Castiglione Problem: Classicism and the Picturesque in 17th century Rome, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 3, no. 1, (Oct, 1939-Jan, 1940), 142-147.

Anthony Blunt, “La premièr période romaine de Poussin,” Nicolas Poussin: Actes du Colloque Poussin, (Paris, 1960), Vol. 1., p. 164.

Anthony Blunt, “Poussin's' Death of Germanicus lent to Paris,” Burlington Magazine, Vol. 115, No. 845 (Aug., 1973), pp. 533- 536.

Walter Friedlaender, Nicolas Poussin: A New Approach, (London, 1970), p. 138.

Henry Keazor, “Poussin, Titian and Mantegna, and the Adoration of the Golden Calf at San Francisco” Burlington Magazine, Vol. 137, No. 1102 (Jan., 1995), pp. 12-16. See Keazor for expansive bibliography on this painting.

J.H. Johnstone, “An Early Picture by Nicolas Poussin,” Burlington Magazine, XXXV, 1919, p.9.

 

 

 

3. The Adoration of the Golden Calf (Northampton copy)

The Adoration of the Golden Calf

oil on Canvas, 87 x 123.3 cm, date unknown.

NORTHAMPTON , Museums and Art Gallery.

Provenance.

The NICE site states this painting was given by Mr Nigel Brown in memory of his father Reginald W. Brown, 1957. R.W. Brown was Curator of the Northampton Museum between 1920 and 1955. No further information is known about the ownership of the painting before Brown, but its provenance might only go back to the nineteenth-century- see below.

The Northampton canvas is one of the many copies made after the famous original in the National Gallery, London.  As Humphrey Wine points out, the copies situation is complicated by the existence of variant treatments of the subject, either by or once attributed to Poussin. One is known through a painting in San Francisco, which may reflect an original design by Poussin, but which is definitely not painted by him. PCP thinks it is likely to be a pastiche by Andrea di Lione, more of him in another post.

There is another composition recorded by Félibien, painted for a Neapolitan patron, damaged in 1647, a fragment of which was recorded by Blunt in an English collection.  The whole composition is unknown as it was never engraved, and there seem to be no surviving painted copies. This fragment which shows the heads of two women was exhibited in Paris in 1960 (no. 13). This may have been an earlier attempt at the subject as the heads are consistent with Poussin’s style of the late 1620s.  Wright (L 4) dates this to 1630, but argues against Blunt’s hypothesis. Rather than discuss this problem here, we’ll postpone this until PCP considers the San Francisco Calf and the fragment in the next entries as it seems logical to consider these all together.

The posthumous inventory of Etienne Gantrel (d. 1706) records another copy of the Golden Calf valued at 60 livres, which Wine believes may have been a copy after Poussin.

Finally, a lost painting recorded in the van Biesum sale, Rotterdam, 1719, may according to Pierre Rosenberg “have been the treatment of the theme providing the basis for the San Francisco work.” According to Blunt in 1966, the San Francisco picture was the one sold in Rotterdam, but eventually he was to reject the picture.  As should be obvious by now, reconstructing the evolution of this subject is extremely complicated!

The Northampton copy must be Wine’s no 2 recorded in 1948, as Blunt lists a copy in a private collection, Northampton, dated 1948. According to Wine, the photograph of this picture suggested a copy from the 19^th century, which is at odds with the NICE record which dates the Northampton picture between 1670 and “probably 1741.” The NICE curatorial record adds that “the style of this copy suggests that it might have been made some decades later by an Italian painter.”

Related Works.

Original. LONDON, National Gallery, 1634-35, oil on canvas, 193 x 128 cm.

Other Copies of the London Original: NB, this information is taken from Wine- see below.

1)      Karlsruhe, Staatliche Kunsthalle, no. 1931, 99 x 133 cm.

2)      Private collection, England, recorded in 1948. According to Wine, the photograph of this in the NG dossier suggests to him a 19^th century copy. Blunt refers to this copy in his CR of 1966.

3)      In reverse, a small oil sketch (11 ½  x 15 ½ in.) sold Christie’s 14^th January 1972 (lot 101, 80 guineas). According to Wine, there is a photograph of this in the N.G. dossier.

4)      Ader Picard Tajan, Paris, 30^th June, 1989 (lot 196), 56.5 x 71 cm.)

5)      Moscow, Pushkin Museum, 114 x 167 cm. Probably a copy dating to the beginning of the 18^th century.

6)      A copy said to be by Charles Lebrun was in the Robert Strange sale, Christie’s 5^th March 1773, (lot 109).

7)      A variant treatment in a private collection, London, recorded in 1970. Apparently, no photograph of this in the N.G., just a description.

8)      A painted version by the 17^th century artist Pierre de Sève (1623-95) for the Gobelins tapestry works was made sometime between 1684 and 1691, probably towards the beginning of this period when the London original was owned by Phillipe de Lorraine. For more on the tapestries, see here.

Wine then goes on to list what “may be copies” of the London original.

1)      Lot 101 of the Dufresne sale, Amsterdam, 1770, the recorded size of which was 41 x 68 pouces (i.e. 111 x 184 cm).

2)      Item 64 recorded in the posthumous inventory of J-B Maximilien Titon on 12^th August, 1768.

3)      The painting of the Adoration of the Golden Calf offered for sale by Aureliano Albano, chief secretary of Prince Carlo Emanuele of Savoy, to another of the prince’s secretaries in a letter of 17^th December 1862 in which Aureliano claimed his painting to be by Poussin and to have been made for the Del Pozzo family.

4)      Lancret sale, Paris, Rémy, 5^th April, 1782, lot 332.

5)      Dezallier d’Argenville included among works by Poussin then in Rome “the Crossing of the Red sea”, “the Adoration of the Golden Calf” and among those by him in France in one of various unnamed collections, “the Golden Calf.”

6)      A painting of the Golden Calf purporting to be by Poussin was exhibited at the Académie Royale de Toulouse in 1783.

7)      Not a copy, but a painting of Moses and Aaron holding the Tablets of the Law in which the figure of Aaron is based on the figure in the original in London, is in the parish church of Harwich, Essex. It was acquired from William Paris in 1700.

Engravings

1)      By E. Baudet.

2)      Anonymous, published by J.F. Cars.

3)      Anonymous, published by J. Audran.

4)      Anonymous, published by E. Gantrel.

5)      By L. Surugue.

6)      Anonymous Dutch engraving.

Drawings

No original drawings for the London version exist, though there are may be copies after preparatory drawings. There are about six of these copies listed in Prat and Rosenberg’s catalogue raisonné of the drawings. According to Wine, there may be other drawings connected with the composition that surfaced in eighteenth-century sales

Description and Theme

The source is the Old Testament (Exodus Chap. 24). Moses ascends Mount Sinai to receive the tablets of the Law from God, leaving the children of Israel in the care of Aaron and Hur. The people thought Moses would not return so they asked Aaron to make other gods; he made a golden calf and set it up on an altar. Before this the Israelites made offerings and celebrated. On seeing the calf on his return, and seeing the people dancing, Moses grew angry and broke the stone tablets on which God had written the commandments.

The original in London was painted for Amedeo dal Pozzo. It is the pendant to the Israelites Crossing the Red Sea, the Melbourne painting recently restored.  The London picture was not separated from its pendant until 1945.

Technical Notes.

No technical information is available on the Northampton copy yet, but judging from the PCF photograph, the picture doesn’t seem to be in good condition.

Additional Remarks.

The Northampton copy is not tremendously important in the scheme of things, but highlights the copy situation with this composition, and other variants. A more pressing issue here is dating. On the PCF site, the Northampton copy is dated between 1700-1741; this is less broader than NICE’s date range which opts for 1670-1741. But, PCP believes that Wine may be right in suggesting that the Northampton picture is a nineteenth-century copy, possibly even by an English artist knowledgeable about Poussin’s designs? Poussin’s compositions with dancing figures like the Golden Calf, Dance to the Music of Time (Wallace Coll.) and the Bacchanal before a Herm (also NG) were much admired by English and Irish painters in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. For example, the Irish artist James Barry incorporated Poussinesque dancing groups into his compositions, like his Grecian Harvest Home. It may be advisable for the PCF to re-label this painting “After Poussin, possibly nineteenth-century copyist.” 

Catalogues

Anthony Blunt, Exposition Nicolas Poussin, (Museé du Louvre, 1960), no. 38.

Anthony Blunt, The Paintings of Nicolas Poussin: A Critical Catalogue, (London, 1966), no. 26.

Pierre Rosenberg and Louis-Antoine Prat, Nicolas Poussin 1594-1665: Catalogue raisonné des dessins, 2 vols., (Milan, 1994).

Humphrey Wine, The Seventeenth Century French Paintings in the National Gallery, (London, 2001), 314-323.

Wright, C., Old Master Paintings in Britain: An Index of Old Master Continental Paintings Executed before c.1800 in Public Collections in the United Kingdom, London, 1976, p. 165.

Christopher Wright, Poussin Paintings: A Catalogue Raisonné, (London, 1984), no. 86.

Other Literature.

Anthony Blunt, Nicolas Poussin, (London, 1995), pp. 238-239.

Walter Friedlaender, Nicolas Poussin: A New Approach, (London, 1970), pp. 138-139.

Pablo Pérez d'Ors; Angela Smith, NICE curatorial record.

2. The Holy Family, Leicester Art Gallery.

The Holy Family with the Infant St John

Oil on Canvas, 97.5 x 73 cm.

LEICESTER , Museum and Art Gallery.

Provenance.

Gift from Mr C. Hedley Haddon, 1943.

According to the NICE record, this work was given to the museum at Leicester in recognition of efforts made during the war on behalf of the owner, whose collection was safely evacuated from his home. The Leicester painting is a much smaller version of the almost life-size Holy Family in the Ringling Museum at Sarasota. From Poussin’s correspondence we know that the Sarasota Holy Family was begun for “une personne grande,” probably the Duc de Créqui, who declined the offer of the picture. Though unfinished, the Sarasota painting was offered in August 1655 to Mme de Montmort, later Mme de Chantelou,who had asked for a Madonna. This offer was withdrawn in November 1655, and presumably went to the original commissioner, the Duc de Crequi? After the 17^th century, the Sarasota Holy Family is found in the collection of Sir Richard Worsley (1751-1808) where it passes by inheritance to the Earls of Yarborough; later sold at Christie’s, London 12/7/1929;  and bought by Newton with Böhler; later sold by him to the Ringling Museum.

The Sarasota painting was engraved by Voet, and according to Blunt, a dedication by Jean Dughet to Jean Pointel (Poussin’s banker friend) led to the error of thinking that the large Holy Family was painted for Pointel. As Pointel was engaged in buying pictures for the Duc de Créqui in Rome, it has been suggested that “une personne grande” referred to the latter. A problem here, as Blunt points out, is that the inventory of the Duc de Créqui’s paintings contains two “Holy Families” by Poussin, but neither of them corresponds exactly to the Sarasota painting. One is the Holy Family at Harvard (Holy Family with St Elizabeth and St John the Baptist) , and the other might be a “Holy Family with adoring putti” which obviously doesn't match the Sarasota painting, or its Leicester variant.

Though there is no definite proof, we could accept that the illustrious client was Créqui, and that Poussin may have painted a smaller picture for Pointel as a gift, or for services rendered in securing him commissions, or maybe just out of friendship.  According to the NICE report, Wright “and others judged it to be the original of a composition which was engraved by Voet, and dedicated to Pointel who may once have owned it.” However, Jacques Thuillier rejected the Leicester picture in his catalogue raisonné of 1974, and inexplicably the Leicester painting isn’t mentioned in Blunt’s 1966 CR despite it being known in the 1950s.  As to the 17^th century owner of the Sarasota canvas, Blunt was content to leave the case open until further evidence came to light. The success of Wright’s attribution to Pointel rests partly on whether the provenance of the Sarasota picture can be traced to the Duc de Créqui who certainly had a connection with Pointel, according to Saint-Simon.

Related Works.

Original. SARASOTA, John and Mable Ringling Museum, 1655, oil on canvas, 193 x 128 cm.

Other Copies:

1)      Meyer-Glitza collection, Hamburg, 108 x 80 cms. Inherited from Dr Adolf Glitza (1820-94). Sold Hauswedell, Hamburg, 27/11/65, lot. 28.

2)      Church of Montmorency (Oise).

Engravings:

1)      By Alexander Voet.

2)      Published Malbouré.

Description and Theme

The Sarasota Holy Family corresponds to Poussin’s description of a picture he had begun for “une personage grande” mentioned above:  large, consisting of four figures, showing St John in the act of begging Christ to give him his blessing. In the Louvre exhibition of 1960 Blunt said that these Holy Families were Poussin’s “last word on the theme.” He described them having an unperturbed sculptural quality, simplicity of modelling and eliminating picturesque detail. He also thought that these were traits consistent with the pictures of the aging master. The monumental quality of the Sarasota picture is noteworthy. Poussin never painted a more pensive Virgin who seems to be lost in reflection while Joseph standing at the rear, hand on chin, is deeply thoughtful.  The mask-like quality of Joseph’s face seems appropriate to Kurt’s Badt’s point that this feature (linked with the 1648 Holy Family on the Steps) expresses a “higher universality.” Also, Gert Fischer’s idea that the mask-like faces of Poussin’s figures in religious paintings of the period 1648-50 “can be read as an expression of inherent divinity which is concealed yet palpably present” seems to fit these Holy Families of 1655. By contrast the children seem to suggest the human external world with their raised arms and animated gestures, which contrast with the frozen introspection of the adults.

Poussin’s motivation for painting on such a large canvas are unclear. According to Verdi, at least three Holy Families are painted on upright canvases, in the manner of Raphael and his followers. These are the Sarasota and Hermitage versions (see below) and possibly the Holy Family in the Temple, in the Museé Condé at Chantilly. Poussin here seems to be trying to measure up to Raphael, or overstepping him; if one were judging Holy Families on seriousness of mood, one could say he did. Friedlaender pointed out how different these vertical formats were from Poussin’s “oblong canvases” of a few years earlier, e.g. the Hermitage Holy Family in Egypt, painted for Mme de Montmort, later Mme de Chantelou, in 1648; or the Cleveland Holy Family on the Steps, also painted in 1648. Perhaps, as Friedlaender said, the large scale suited Poussin’s ideas on “planimetric conventions with [the] monumental style of the Maniera Magnifica”, as well as blending “religious introspection” with “stoic meditation.”  

Though something of the sombre mood is retained in the Leicester variant, due to its reduced size, the effect on the spectator is different. Some of the architectural background like the right side of Virgin’s throne are lost; this allows the viewer to focus on the Holy Family alone, instead of their surroundings. These changes could support the idea that the Leicester canvas was painted with a different purpose, possibly as an intimate, devotional picture, or just a gift as suggested above- but still the problem remains of who owned it. There are a number of these Holy Families that are connected with a circle of French patrons, e.g. the Hermitage Holy Family (above) was owned by Chantelou who acquired it in June, 1655. Should the Leicester painting be placed within the network of French patrons who were both devout and of a “stoic” disposition? The seriousness of these Holy Families might reflect the philosophical nature of such patrons, though the present author thinks Verdi’s point about Poussin wanting to surpass Raphael’s treatment of the subject might be the more likely motivation for the grandeur of these Holy Families.

Technical Notes

The Leicester painting was originally rejected by Thuillier in 1974, but the museum says that “after cleaning in the early 1980s its quality became clear.” No more is known of the condition of this painting; perhaps Wright puts it in the context of the cleaning in his catalogue. It is worth quoting Wright’s words on the Sarasota Holy Family in his CR of 1981, though he doesn’t list copies or variants:

“It appears to be good enough for an authentic Poussin although there is always the problem of brushwork after about 1640. Copies are extremely difficult to detect owing to the dryness of Poussin’s handling. Recent opinion has in any case been in favour of the picture.”

Wright then cites the case of the Washington Holy Family on the Steps, now thought to be a copy after the original at Cleveland. “The only factor against the Washington picture is that it is curiously hard in handling which would imply that it was a good old copy. However, a word of warning- Poussin’s handling was becoming less and less personal at this stage and exact handling of painting is a dangerous contention if it alone can decide the issue between original and copy. Recent publications of the X-rays of the Cleveland version have now removed doubts as to its being a possible copy. The question now remains as to whether the Washington version was also painted by Poussin.” This last point obviously relates to Tony Green’s comment on the previous Christ Healing the Blind Men post about copies and autograph copies, an aspect of Poussin’s production which will be analysed on this blog another time.

Additional Remarks.

On the PCF site the Leicester picture is “attributed to Poussin” According to the NICE curatorial record, catalogued as “after Poussin,” in 1958. Mentioned by Wright in his Old Master Paintings in Britain of 1976. Subsequently catalogued in Wright’s Masterpieces of Reality: French 17th Century Painting, which needs to be checked to see what precise arguments were deployed to support the Leicester attribution. There is still the mystery of Blunt failing to mention an English variant of the Sarasota painting in his 1966 CR, despite the fact the picture was known to scholars in the late 1950s. Blunt may have missed it, or ignored it because he felt it unworthy of attention. The Leicester picture appeared on the Poussin radar with Thuillier considering it in 1974, and Wright proposing it as autograph in 1985 after cleaning. However, it is important to state that cleaning a picture that has copy status doesn’t automatically make it autograph. On the provenance front, placing the picture in Pointel’s collection doesn’t seem an unreasonable hypothesis, but more work needs to be done on Poussin’s network of clients in relation to these enigmatic Holy Families; also the issue of copies, including autograph copies, might elucidate the circumstances in which the Leicester variant appeared.

Catalogues

Anthony Blunt, Exposition Nicolas Poussin, (Museé du Louvre, 1960), no. 107. (Sarasota original)

Anthony Blunt, The Paintings of Nicolas Poussin: A Critical Catalogue, (London,1966), no. 51.(Sarasota original).

Jacques Thuillier, L'Opera completa di Nicolas Poussin, Milan 1974, cat. no. 196, pl. 196a. (Leicester variant).

Christopher Wright, Old Master Paintings in Britain: An Index of Continental Old Master Paintings Executed before c.1800 in Public Collections in the United Kingdom, London, 1976, p. 165. (Leicester variant)

Christopher Wright, Poussin Paintings: A Catalogue Raisonné, (London, 1984), no. 174. (Sarasota original).

Christopher Wright, Masterpieces of Reality: French 17th Century Painting, Leicester, 1985, cat. no. 26, p. 131, ill. p. 37, pl. 26 (Leicester variant).

Richard Verdi, Nicolas Poussin 1594-1665, (Royal Academy, London, 1995), pp. 294-295.

Various, Leicester Museum and Art Gallery: Collection of Paintings, (Leicester, 1958), cat. no. 337, as after Poussin (Leicester variant).

Other Literature.

Correspondance  de Nicolas Poussin ed. Ch. Jouanny, (Paris, 1911), pp.436, 437f., 439, 441.

Kurt Badt, Die Kunst des Nicolas Poussin (Cologne, 1969), 24-5 and 420f.

Anthony Blunt, Poussin Studies IV: Two Rediscovered Late Works, the Burlington Magazine, Vol 92, No. 563, (Feb 1950), pp. 38-52.

Anthony Blunt, Nicolas Poussin, (London, 1995), pp. 238-239.

Walter Friedlaender, Nicolas Poussin: A New Approach, (London, 1970), p. 68.

Gert Fischer, “Presence of divinity: Poussin’s conception of figures and the depiction of mythical nature,” in Presence: The Inherence of the Prototype within Images and Other Objects, ed. Rupert Shepherd, (London, 2006), pp. 121-134.

Angela Smith, NICE curatorial record.

 

1. Copy of Christ Healing the Blind Men.

(After Poussin) Christ Healing the Blind

Oil on Canvas, 119 x 170.2 cm.

BIRMINGHAM, Museum and Art Gallery.

Provenance.

Presented to the museum by Mrs Maud Lowndes, 1933. No further information about the history of this picture known. According to the entry on the NICE website this copy may be one of three versions recorded in the 19th century, copies 4,5,6 in Blunt's list- see below. Blunt lists the Birmingham copy as separate from these three though. The NICE record also states:

"A letter from BMAG keeper, Richard Lockett (1988) states that he considers this painting to have been done in Poussin's studio and, therefore, in Paris some time in the late seventeenth century. Another version was sold, Sotheby's, 4 April 1984, lot 270, as attrib. to Coypel. Yet another featured in the exhbition, Nicholas Poussin et Son Temps, April - May 1961, no. 9 as attributed to Bourdon (114 x 163 cms)."

This may be a copy done just after Poussin's death in 1665. Blunt noted that copies flourished after the master's death because Poussin had left hardly any paintings, and his works were in great demand. To assuage this craving, painters either copied or tried to falsify his compositions. As for the question of Poussin's studio in the late 17th century, Poussin didn't really have one, so I would rule the idea out that the Birmingham variant is a studio creation. The only person likely to have copied the original in Poussin's "studio" was his brother-in-law, Jean Dughet, though Jean was an engaver; he may have engraved the original- see below.The painting shown in 1961, attributed to Bourdon is presumably no. 2 on Blunt's list of copies? The 1984 copy attributed to Coypel was sold at Sotheby's a year after Blunt's death. Blunt includes an engraving puiblished by Coypel (Antoine?) after the painting, no. 4 below.

"Original entry in Gallery Inventory Book states that this was believed to be from the collection of Thos. Wright." More provenace research needed..

Related Works.

Original. PARIS, Museé du Louvre, Christ Healing the Blind, 1650, oil on canvas, 119 x 176 cm.

Other Copies:

1)      Museé des Beaux Arts, Rheims. Bequeathed to the city by Antoine Ferrand de Monthelon in 1712.

2)      National Museum, Copenhagen (560). In the inventory of the Royal Collection by 1732; then ascribed to Bourdon, but actually a free variant of Poussin’s composition by an unidentified follower.

3)      Andre Le Nôtre Collection, 42 x 60 inches. Valued at 100 livres.

4)      Among the pictures of the Robit and other collections exhibited for sale by Bryan in 1801-2.

5)      Lord Berwick Sale, Philips, London, 15/4/1826, lot 186, bt. Lord Gower; by descent to the Dukes of Sutherland; Sutherland sale, Christie’s, London, 11/7/1913, lot 33.

6)      Isaac Pittar Sale, Philips, London, 19/4/1842.

7)      Anon, sale, Christies, London, 6/5/1949, gouache, signed by Henry Toutin.

8)     Sold at Sotheby's 4 April 1984, lot 270, as attrib. to Coypel.

Drawings:

1)      Royal Library, Windsor Castle, pen and brown ink, 151 x 220 mm.

2)      Museé Bonnat, Bayonne, pen and brown ink, 110 x 196 mm.

3)      Royal Library, Windsor Castle, Copy after Poussin, pen and brown ink, brown wash, 144 x 186 mm.

4)      Royal Library, Windsor Castle, Copy after Poussin, pen and brown ink, brown wash, 135 x 171 mm.

Engravings:

1)      By G. Chasteau.

2)      By L. Audran.

3)      Published by Picart le Romain.

4)      Published by Coypel.

5)      Perhaps by Jean Dughet or Pietro del Po. The figure group, less three disciples, without the background. A print of this engraving is to be found in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. 

Description and Theme

The subject derives from Matthew, New Testament. Christ heals two blind men by the roadside by touching their eyes.

The Birmingham painting is one of 8 ( possibly 9) copies after Poussin’s celebrated original in the Louvre, which according to Félibien, was painted for the silk merchant Reynon in 1650. Poussin’s original was the subject of a lecture by Sebastian Bourdon given at the French Academy in 1667. As some scholars have argued (Bätschmann, Fumaroli, Packwood), there may be a link here between the science of painting and divine vision; Christ acts as a kind of “Deus Pictor” opening the eyes of the blind to the glory of nature in which God is concealed, the neo-Augustinianism of the “hidden God,” (Packwood).  Unfortunately this dimension is completely lost in the Birmingham copy which lacks Poussin’s careful gradation of colours, or his expert distribution of light and shade. The grandeur of God is not manifested in the landscape of this copy.  

No less interesting is the treatment of the buildings in the copy, shown above. A close inspection reveals certain alterations to architectural features. For instance the villa in the centre- which receives the most light- see below for original-has been slightly modified. It retains the rustication, but the windows on the lower floor have been eliminated. An interesting question arises because of this alteration: could the copyist be basing his changes on actual houses and architecture that he knew? As Blunt pointed out, in the original, this building is Palladian in design, but doesn’t conform strictly to the architect’s style. Poussin’s central villa lacks a pediment over its loggia resulting in a straight skyline. Intriguingly, a similar design to this building can be found in Inigo Jones’s Queen’s House at Greenwich. Poussin obviously didn’t see that, but Blunt found himself looking for a common source. He concluded that Jones and Poussin may have known a drawing of another villa without pediment, but confessed that it was “mysterious” that Poussin could have known of such a drawing.

This isn’t the only alteration the copyist made: he seems to have had an aversion to small windows since he also effaced them in the campanile in the centre, as well as in the house on the wooded slope at the back of the town- the PCF resolution isn't very good, so difficult to show this. As Cropper and Dempsey said, this cluster of buildings containing a bell tower, Christian basilica (with oculus and open loggia) signified generally the early Christian churches of Rome with their medieval towers, including Poussin’s own parish church of S. Lorenzo in Lucina or S. Giorgio in Velabro.  Such a campanile appears in the back of a number of his landscapes of the 1650s, but as Blunt pointed out, Poussin probably made his own variation on buildings he knew on his walks around the district. The origins of the beautiful morning light that Poussin conveys in the original may recollect early morning walks around Rome; Bellori tells us he rose early and walked round the city for several hours.  

Technical Notes

Condition of copy. Unknown. I have viewed this in the museum before, but it is currently not on show. There may be discolouration caused by dirt and varnish- but difficult to say without a technical report. The NICE report describes the copy as a "good, old and faithful copy of the original by Poussin in Louve" with "Copies of this standard unusual for Poussin's late work."

In the Birmingham copy, light doesn’t fall on the enigmatic villa, or indeed the town. In fact, the symbolic function of light is completely absent throughout; with its black storm clouds and darkened landscape, Christ looks like he’s healing the blind in a setting threatened by a thunderstorm. This may be down to the condition of the picture, although curators see this as a "good" copy. Despite this, the when looking at the Birmingham picture in its present state I get the feeling that the copyist didn’t understand the ideas behind Poussin’s original at all-, and one wonders what the source of this copy was. The original was in Reynon's collection until it passed into the collections of the Duc de Richelieu and later sold to Louis XIV in 1665, the year of Poussin's death. The following point must also be borne in mind: the picture in the Louvre isn’t in its original condition; according to Bourdon in 1667, the buildings behind Christ (i.e. the basilica complex) were highly illuminated.
As Bätschmann rightly pointed out, the most illuminated building is the mysterious villa discussed above. Bourdon can’t have seen the picture in this condition, so one wonders what has happened to this picture over time. In the Louvre catalogue of 1960 Blunt comments on its “recent restoration” which he elaborates on in his CR of 1966: when the picture was cleaned by the Louvre, “the colours were found to be unnaturally light for Poussin, and in some places almost strident.” The result led some critics to declare the Louvre painting a copy, a suggestion that has been universally rejected. Blunt upheld the attribution, pointing out that in his lecture Bourdon himself “commented on the unusual brightness of the colour, but justifies it as appropriate to the theme”. The relationship of the colour scheme to the theme has been thoroughly demonstrated by Bätschmann. Besides, Bourdon would have been able to distinguish between a Poussin copy and the original. 

Additional Remarks.

Catalogued on the PCF site as “After” Poussin. In the light of the discussion of architecture above, possibly the work of a 17th copyist with knowledge of Palladian structures or buildings, though this just a hypotheosis. Possible course of action: check architectural detail in other copies and replicas, and compare with buildings in the Birmingham copy and the Louvre original which might yield interesting results. A closer look at the buildings in the copy would be useful too, when it goes back on show. 

What remains unresolved about the original is why the Palladian- styled villa is illuminated instead of the buildings at the back of Christ, as Bourdon observed. Is this a result of restoration, or is there some other reason?  I haven't been able to check a copy of Rosenberg's 1994 catalogue of the Paris exhibition, which might have additional notes on condition. 

Relevant Literature. (N.B. This isn’t a complete list. If I come across more relevant sources I’ll post them in an update).

Catalogues

Anthony Blunt, Exposition Nicolas Poussin, (Museé du Louvre), 1960, no. 91

Anthony Blunt, The Paintings of Nicolas Poussin: A Critical Catalogue, (London,1966), no. 74.

Christopher Wright, Poussin Paintings: A Catalogue Raisonné, (London, 1984), no. 168.

Various, Catalogue of Paintings in Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery, 1960.

Various, Foreign Paintings in Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, A Summary Catalogue, 1983, no. 117.

Various, Masterpieces of Reality. French Seventeenth Century Painting, Leicestershire Museum and Art Gallery, 1986. 

Other Literature.

Oskar Bätschmann, Nicolas Poussin: Dialectics of Painting, (London, 1990), 30-39.

Anthony Blunt, Poussin Studies XII: Early Falsifications of Poussin, The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 104, no. 716, November 1962, 486-498.

Anthony Blunt, Nicolas Poussin, (London, 1995, orig. pub. 1967), 238-9.

Elizabeth Cropper, Charles Dempsey, Nicolas Poussin: Friendship and the Love of Painting, (Princeton, 1996), 205-215.

Marc Fumaroli, L’Ecole du Silence: Le Sentiment des Images au XVII Siècle, (Paris, 1998), 224f.

David Packwood, unpublished PhD dissertation, Theological and Philosophical Themes in Poussin’s Art, (University of Birmingham, 2005), 267-279.

Patricia Smythe, NICE (National Inventory of Continental European Paintings) record.