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A Bacchanalian Revel before a Term:
Catalogue entry

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About the catalogue

Full title
A Bacchanalian Revel before a Term
Artist
Nicolas Poussin
Inventory number
NG62
Author
Humphrey Wine
Extracted from
The Seventeenth Century French Paintings (London, 2001)

Nicolas Poussin 1594–1665
NG 62 
A Bacchanalian Revel before a Term1

Humphrey Wine, 2001

Extracted from:
Humphrey Wine, The Seventeenth Century French Paintings (London: National Gallery Company and Yale University Press, 2001).

© The National Gallery, London

1632–3

Oil on canvas, 98.0 × 142.8 cm

Provenance

Possibly in the collection of (Pierre‐François?) Basan;2 Pierre‐Louis‐Paul Randon de Boisset (1708–1776), Receveur‐Général des Finances de Lyon, resident in Paris,3 his posthumous sale, Paris, Rémy & Juliot, 27ff. February 1777 (lot 165, 14,999 livres 19 sols to Le Brun);4 in the collection of Joseph‐Hyacinthe‐François de Paule de Rigaud, comte de Vaudreuil (1740–1817), by 1786;5 his sale, Paris, Lebrun, 27 November 1787 (lot 28, 15,100 livres to Lebrun);6 Charles‐Alexandre de Calonne (1734–1802), French minister of Finance, 1783–7, his mortgagees’ sale, London, Skinner & Dyke, 28 March 1795 (lot 96, 870 guineas, bought in);7 exhibited at Bryan’s Gallery, Savile Row, London, 27ff. April 1795, no. 134,8 where bought for ‘about £1200’ by ‘Mr Hamilton’,9 elsewhere identified as ‘the Rev. Mr. [Frederick] Hamilton, (brother of Sir William Hamilton…)’ by whom apparently sold to Troward;10 Troward sale, London, Phillips, 18 April 1807 (lot 10, 1500 guineas to Lord Kinnaird);11 Lord Kinnaird sale of pictures removed from his house at 53 Lower Grosvenor Street, London, Phillips, 21 May 1811 (lot 14, 1400 guineas),12 presumably bought in, because in Lord Kinnaird’s sale, London, Phillips, 5 March 1813 (lot 86, withdrawn); bought privately (with NG 35 and 194) by the dealer Alexis Delahante;13 sold by Delahante to the Revd Thomas Baseley before 19 June 1813 conditional on payment;14 by 22 May 1816 owned by Thomas Hamlet, goldsmith and jeweller, of Cavendish Square, London;15 sold by him with NG 9 and NG 35 to the National Gallery for £900016 in March 1826.

Exhibitions

London 1795, Bryan’s Gallery (134); London 1801, European Museum (possibly 577); London 1816, BI (122); London 1945, NG , Fifty‐four pictures on exhibition at the reopening of the Gallery 17th May 1945 (no catalogue); London 1947, NG (60); Paris 1960, Louvre (50) (where dated c. 1637); Edinburgh 1981 (15); Paris 1994–5, Grand Palais (47) (where dated 1631–3); London 1995, RA (28) (where dated c. 1634).

Related Works

Paintings
  • (1) A copy on a coarse canvas was recorded by Duchesne Aîné as belonging to a Venetian, Sivri, in 1827 who had taken it to Vienna to sell for 6000 francs;17
  • (2) Lyon, Musée des Beaux‐Arts (no. 361), 63 × 127 cm, acquired in 1860. A mediocre copy;18
  • (3) Vire, Musée Municipal, 80 × 136 cm, destroyed during hostilities in 1944.19 Described as exactly like NG 62 apart from the dimensions, and as having been one of three Bacchanals painted for the duc de Montmorency;20
  • (4) Paris, private collection in 1973. A copy;21
  • (5) Wilton House, Wiltshire. A copy of the two children on the left, published by Grautoff as autograph,22 was said by Blunt to have been painted under Poussin’s direct supervision,23 14 × 11¾ in.; at Wilton House since before 1730,24 but not by Poussin;
  • (6) John Vaughan Dutton deceased sale, Christie & Manson, 28 April 1838 (lot 252, £32 11s. to Baedel), where described as ‘a replica of the beautiful picture in the National Gallery’.
  • (7) Sydney, National Gallery of New South Wales, no. 166. 1979. Oil on canvas, 94.5 × 124.5 cm. A copy, bequeathed by Miss C.V.F.F. Anderson, 1979.
Drawings (by, or attributed to, Poussin)25
  • (1) Stockholm, National Museum (inv. no. NM THC 5404a) ( R.‐P. 44) (fig. 4). A sketch for the two children at the left;
  • (2) Windsor Castle, Royal Library (inv. no. 11979) ( R.‐P. 57) (fig. 2). Not strictly speaking preparatory for NG 62, from which it shows considerable differences, but more likely an early idea for the subject. Dated by Mahon 1632–3, by Rosenberg and Prat 1628–30, by Clayton c. 1631–2,26 and by Brigstocke 1632.27 An engraving by F.C. Lewis of this drawing was published in Original Designs of the most celebrated masters in His Majesty’s Collection, London 1812;
  • (3) London, British Museum (Sloane 5237‐147) ( R.‐P. R517) (fig. 8). Controversially rejected as an autograph work by Rosenberg and Prat and previously by Rosenberg,28 defended as autograph by Brigstocke,29 Clayton30 and Verdi, but rejected by A.S. Harris;31
  • (4) Florence, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi (inv. 905 E) ( R.‐P. 86). The drawing (see p. 355, fig. 9) is preparatory for Poussin’s Triumph of Pan (NG 6477) but, as Brigstocke pointed out,32 it includes at the left the motif of a putto drinking from a fountain found at the right of NG 62;
  • (5) Paris, Louvre, Département des Arts Graphiques (inv. no. 32459) ( R.‐P. R741). The theme is similar to that of NG 62. The child in the left foreground of the drawing is closely related to the reclining child at the left of NG 62, and whoever was the author of this drawing (Poussin according to Oberhuber, 1988, D. 135, but rejected by Rosenberg and Prat and by Clayton) seems likely to have had knowledge of NG 62;
  • (6) Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland (D3229) ( R.‐P. R378r). This drawing, attributed by Rosenberg to Chaperon and connected by him to NG 62, is surely inspired by The Triumph of Pan (NG 6477).33
Other drawing

London, National Portrait Gallery. A squared‐up pencil copy of NG 62 by Henry Bone (1755–1834), inscribed at the bottom: after Poussin, original in the possession of T. Hamlet Esqre. Aug.11 1819, and at the top in a different hand: now in the National Gallery. The drawing was made for an enamel.34

Prints

Technical Notes

In good condition, but with some wear in the sky at the left. The ridges apparent at the top may be caused by the way the ground was applied. There is some dirt stuck in the hollows of the canvas. There has been some degradation of the ultramarine pigment in the drapery of the left‐hand figure. The yellow draperies are composed of lead‐tin yellow, which occurs also in the impasto lights of the foliage greens, combined with green earth (terre verte) and other earth pigments.

The primary support is a medium/heavy plain‐weave canvas, relined possibly early in the nineteenth century, but certainly before 1853 when the Gallery’s conservation records began, and probably before Sir Charles Eastlake’s appointment as Keeper in November 1843.37 The top centre of the stretcher (not original) is inscribed 17 in black paint or wax crayon. The double ground is unusual in constitution, with a pink lower layer comprising largely calcium carbonate and red lead (lead textroxide minium), and a grey ground over it. The paint medium used in the green foliage was a heat‐bodied linseed oil giving the paint extra body as well as improving drying.38 NG 62 was last cleaned in 1940.39

The X‐radiograph (fig. 1), which is difficult to read because of the double ground, shows that NG 62 was painted over another composition, the details of which are unclear. The [page 291]X‐radiograph also indicates some changes in the composition of NG 62 itself: there may have been another figure to the right of the term, possibly garlanding it; the arm of the central dancing figure was lower, so exposing the face of the dancing male figure behind him; the direction of the tree trunks has been changed; and there are other illegible alterations at bottom left.

Discussion

The subject has no specific literary source, but can be broadly associated with bacchic festivities. The painting seems to have been first called ‘Bacchanalian Revel before a Term of Pan’ in 1946 by Davies, who retained the title in the 1957 edition of his catalogue, without, however, explaining it.40 Blunt questioned Davies’s identification of the term as one of Pan, arguing that ‘the fact it is hung with garlands of flowers and that there are floral wreaths in the foreground suggests that it is really the image of Priapus, the god of gardens’.41 Although the term lacks the exaggerated genitalia associated with Priapus, who was principally a fertility god, this would have been unnecessary to indicate his secondary role as god of gardens, and in any event would presumably have been regarded as unacceptable in a painting. The identification of the term as one of Priapus receives further support from the fact that the pipes and crook which identify the term in the Windsor drawing (fig. 2) as one of Pan have been abandoned in NG 62. In addition, the amorous male figure at the right has the usual attributes of Pan (goat’s legs and ears and horns, as well as a partiality to nymphs). If that figure was intended as Pan, rather than simply a satyr, he would be unlikely to feature again in the same painting.

The theme of figures dancing before a term is one which Poussin may have previously explored in a now lost picture once in a Piedmontese collection,42 and one which he used in another lost painting, probably later in date than NG 62, now known through an engraving and several copies.43 The theme is also broadly like that of NG 6477. In NG 62, however, drunkenness seems confined to the putto asleep at the left, while the jar held aloft by the maenad standing at the right and the single dish discarded in the bottom right corner suggest only a moderate consumption of alcohol by Poussin’s other figures, who seem to have heeded Ovid’s counsel: ‘Wine prepares the heart for love, unless you take o’ermuch and your spirits are dulled and drowned by too much liquor.’44 In the Windsor drawing (fig. 2), which has a thematic but not necessarily compositional connection to NG 62 (see below), discarded wine jars are more evident, the dancing is less measured, and the branches snaking around the tree trunks suggest rampant excess. The painting shares the bacchic theme of the drawing, but the former’s frieze‐like composition suggests a less abandoned, more controlled frenzy.

It is now generally agreed that NG 62 was executed before The Adoration of the Golden Calf (NG 5597), with which it shares the central group of dancers in reverse. As Mahon noted, there are obvious differences between the two paintings, not merely in tonality but also in handling and texture, rendering questionable the idea that the two paintings could have been contemporary.45 Elsewhere he also noted an evident link between NG 62 and the pictures associable with the Dresden Adoration of the Magi of 1633 (which include the Dulwich Triumph of David),46 and in 1962 he argued for a dating of 1633–4 for NG 62.47 But since then it has been discovered that Poussin’s Saving of the Infant Pyrrhus (Paris, Louvre) was completed by September 1634,48 and that The Adoration of the Golden Calf (NG 5597) was commissioned in 1632 and consequently was most probably completed before the Pyrrhus. Although the coppery tonality of the Pyrrhus would in any event be justified by the time of day (evening) at which Plutarch relates the action as having occurred,49 that is not necessarily the case for, say, The Adoration of the Shepherds (NG 6277) or The Adoration of the Golden Calf (NG 5597), which share the same tonality, and it is reasonable to assume that Poussin adopted it generally at some time in 1633 and throughout 1634. NG 62 does not have this coppery tonality, suggesting early 1633 as the latest conceivable date for it. The figures in NG 62 are more robust than those in, say, the Madrid Apollo and the Muses, which is generally dated 1631–2, making late 1632 or early 1633 the most likely date for the National Gallery picture.50

The motif of the sleeping putto lying face down was used by Poussin two or three years earlier, namely in Midas before Bacchus (Munich, Alte Pinakothek), itself probably painted shortly before 1631.51 The motif of a putto climbing onto a large urn to drink from it, as at the right of NG 62, is also found at the left of Poussin’s Bacchanal of Putti (Rome, Palazzo Barberini, inv. 2592; fig. 3) probably of 1626.52 Davies also noted53 the partial resemblance of the pose of the fallen nymph at the right of NG 62 with that of a figure in a drawing at Windsor (inv. 11889) which can be dated c. 1637;54 both are ultimately derived from the figure at the bottom right of Raphael’s Expulsion of Heliodorus from the Temple.55

The drawing at Windsor Castle (RL 11979) (fig. 2) is related thematically to NG 62, with which it also shares some compositional elements. Poussin may have turned to it as he [page 292]worked on NG 62, as he seems also to have done later when starting work on NG 6477 (see pp. 350–65). The Stockholm drawing (fig. 4), however, is clearly preparatory and shows both children at the left holding up bowls. Assuming the now disputed London drawing (fig. 8) to be autograph, there are a number of differences between it and NG 62 (the nymph holding a vase rather than grapes, her coiffure, the position of the bowl held up by the child, the background, etc.). It is not possible to see from the X‐radiograph whether these differences ever formed part of NG 62. The London drawing may be an autograph compositional study made late in the planning stage, or, as Clayton has suggested, a modello‐type cartoon.56

Fig. 2

Bacchanal before a Term, c. 1632. Pen, brown ink and brown wash and some graphite underdrawing, 20.6 × 32.7 cm. Windsor, Royal Library, The Royal Collection. © 2001, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II A Dance before a Herm of Pan, c. 1631-2. Pen and ink with pale brown wash over graphite underdrawing, 20.6 × 32.7 cm (sheet of paper). Royal Collection Trust, inv. RCIN 911979. © His Majesty King Charles III, 2024

Brigstocke has suggested that the dancers may have been inspired by an engraving after Mantegna (fig. 5),57 although the spirit of the dance in NG 62 is much more robust than it is in that engraving, and numerous other engraved dance images would have been available to Poussin. More closely related is an engraving of the Dance of the Seasons and the Hours (fig. 7) in Blaise de Vigenère’s translation of 1614 of Philostratus’ Imagines, a book which Poussin probably knew.58 The figure at the left is close to the figure at the left of the dancing group in the Windsor drawing (RL 1.1979); the figure at the back is close to the dancing satyr in that drawing; and the figure with her back turned to the viewer resembles the figure at the right of the drawing. Poussin’s particular invention in both the drawing and NG 62 is that of the figure going under the arms of the other dancers, which explains his abandonment in the Windsor drawing of the figure at the right of the engraving in the Imagines. It appears, however, slightly modified, as the dancing satyr in the centre of NG 62. Poussin’s use of this engraving lends support to a tentative suggestion made by Rosenberg (who seemed unaware of the engraving, atleast in this context) that the dancing group represents the Seasons.59 On that basis the nymph at the left would have to represent Autumn because of the grapes she is pressing, but it is difficult to identify any of the other figures, and furthermore the dance is not circular and so does not reflect the seasons’ continuity.60

The early history of NG 62 is unknown. There is no evidence that it was one of the bacchanalian subjects painted for Cardinal Richelieu and at the Palais‐Cardinal,61 and it was certainly not one of those painted for the Cabinet du Roi at the Château de Richelieu (see entries for NG 42 and NG 6477).62 A group of dancing figures at the right of Sébastien Bourdon’s Classical Landscape (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art; fig. 6), which may be dated c. 1660, could be derived from the dancing figures in NG 62 or a print after it. If so, this would suggest that NG 62 was in a Paris collection by then, since Bourdon never went to Rome, but it must in any event have been in Paris by 1665, the latest date that Michel Dorigny could have made a print after it.63 The painting was widely admired after it entered the National Gallery, Waagen, for example, clearly preferring it to all other works there which were then attributed to Poussin.64

General References

Graham 1820, Profane History and Poetry, no. 48; Smith 1837, 221; Grautoff 1914, 83; Magne 1914, 27; Davies 1946, pp. 75–7; Davies 1957, pp. 172–4; Blunt 1966, 141; Badt 1969, 94; Thuillier 1974, 71; Wild 1980, 49; Wright 1985a, 79; Wright 1985b, p. 134; Mérot 1990, 133; Thuillier 1994, 87.

Fig. 3

Bacchanal of Putti, 1626(?). Gouache, tempera and oil on canvas, 74 × 84 cm. Rome, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica (Palazzo Barberini). © Soprintendenza per i Beni Artisticie Storici di Roma Photo: Scala, Florence

Fig. 4

Playing Putti, c. 1628–30. Black chalk, 11 × 7.9 cm. Stockholm, Nationalmuseum. © The National Art Museums of Sweden, Stockholm. Photo: Nationalmuseum Photo: Nationalmuseum, Stockholm

[page 293]
Fig. 5

Giovanni Antonio da Brescia(?) ( c. 1460– c. 1520), after Mantegna, Four Women dancing. Engraving, 24.8 × 32 cm. London, British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings . © The British Museum, London , inv. V,1.62 © The Trustees of the British Museum

Fig. 6

Sébastien Bourdon, Classical Landscape, c. 1660? Oil on canvas, 69.9 × 92.1 cm. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Gift of Atwood A. Allaire, Pamela Askew and Phoebe A. DesMarais in memory of their mother, Constance Askew, 1985 . © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (1985.90). © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Fig. 7

Dance of the Seasons and the Hours. Engraving in Philostratus the Elder, Les Images ou Tableaux de platte peinture…, Paris 1615. London, British Library. © The British Library, London

Fig. 8

Bacchanalian Revel before a Term, c. 1632. Black chalk, brown and pink wash, squared in pink chalk, 20.6 × 32.7 cm. London, British Museum, Department of Prints and Drawings . © The British Museum, London , inv. SL,5237.147 © The Trustees of the British Museum

[page 294]

Notes

1. Not a herm, which is ‘a statue, consisting of a four‐cornered pillar surmounted by a head or bust, usually that of Hermes…’, but a term, which is ‘a statue or bust like those of the god TERMINUS, representing the upper part of the body, sometimes without the arms, and terminating below in a pillar or pedestal out of which it appears to spring…’ The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd edn with corrections, Oxford 1975. (Back to text.)

2. Blunt 1966, p. 101. Blunt cites an anonymous engraving based on NG 62, the location of which he does not specify, and which is inscribed in the margin ‘Ex Collect.e Basan’. The well‐known engraver and print‐seller Pierre‐François Basan (1723–97) seems the most likely candidate. It has been suggested that NG 62 influenced James Barry’s A Grecian Harvest‐Home (Royal Society of Arts). Barry’s painting was completed by 1783 when NG 62 was still in Paris. Barry was in Paris in 1765–6 and in 1771: William L. Pressly, The Life and Art of James Barry, New Haven and London 1981, pp. 7–8, 16, 95–6. (Back to text.)

3. Clément de Ris 1877, pp. 358–81. The earliest possible date for Randon de Boisset’s purchase of NG 62 seems to be 1752 (Bailey in Paris, Philadelphia and Fort Worth 1991–2, pp. 375–6), but see note 2 above. (Back to text.)

4. According to an inscription in a copy of the catalogue in the National Gallery Library. The painting is described in the catalogue as: ‘Nicolas Poussin/165 UNE Fête en l’honneur du Dieu Pan: on voit au bas de cette statue une femme assise qui se défend d’un satyre qui veut l’embrasser, une autre femme le tient par les cheveux, & veut le frapper avec un vase qu’elle tient de la main gauche, plus loin deux hommes & deux femmes dansent, une d’elles presse dans une de ses mains une grappe de raisins dont un enfant reçoit le jus qu’un autre enfant veut lui disputer, un troisième est endormi couché par terre. Les sept figures qui composent ce sujet ont chacune 18 pouces de proportion./Ce tableau, qui tient un rang dans le nombre des plus beaux de ce célèbre Artiste, est peint sur une toile de 3 pieds 6 lignes de haut, sur 4 pieds 3 pouces 6 lignes de large.’

NG 62 was item 167 in Randon de Boisset’s inventory of 18 October 1776 ( A.N. , M.C. , LXXXIV, 546), where described as in the ‘Sallon’ and as ‘un Tableau dont le sujet est des Bacchanales dans un paysage peint sur toille par Nicolas Poussin dans sa bordure de bois sculpté et doré prisé la so[mme] de trois mille six cent livres cy 3600–″–″.’ (Back to text.)

5. Thiéry’s Guide des amateurs, Paris 1787, contains a long description of the hôtel de Vaudreuil, rue de la Chaise, in the Salon of which to the right of the entrance door was ‘le beau Bacchanale du Poussin, venant de chez M. Randon de Boisset’ (vol. 2, p. 547). The manuscript of Thiéry’s book was approved by the government censor on 6 January 1787, and so must have been submitted the previous year, although, to judge from the date of the consent to publish, the book was in preparation from 1784. What was probably NG 62 was also noted by the American painter John Trumbull in Vaudreuil’s collection (‘Bacchanals, by Poussin, very good’) in the summer of 1786: ed. T. Sizer, The Autobiography of Colonel John Trumbull Patriot‐Artist, 1756–1843, New Haven 1953, p. 98, and p. 98 n. 48. (That NG 62 may have been in Vaudreuil’s collection by 1784 may also be inferred from J.B.P. Le Brun’s statement in the preface to the catalogue of Vaudreuil’s 1784 sale that he intended to keep his French pictures.) (Back to text.)

6. According to inscriptions in the copy of the catalogue in the British Library. The description of NG 62 in the catalogue of the Vaudreuil sale was the same as that in Randon de Boisset’s sale (see note 4), but added the information that it had been no. 165 of de Boisset’s sale and there sold for 14,999 livres, 19 sols. (Back to text.)

7. According to an inscription in the copy of the catalogue in the National Gallery Library the purchaser was Bryan. In his Memoirs of Painting (1824) Buchanan says (p. 218) that most of the pictures of consequence were bought in by the mortgagees and then exhibited by Bryan in his Savile Row premises. Since NG 62 was so exhibited, it must be assumed that Bryan’s purchase was on the mortgagees’ behalf. Another marginal inscription reads: ‘twas knd. down first at 900 gs. but being a dispute put up agn.’ The catalogue description includes the following: ‘Out of the collection of Mons. Le Compte Vaudruil and was publicly sold in Paris for 900 Louis d’ors.’ (Back to text.)

8. A typed copy of this catalogue, copied from a catalogue recorded as belonging to E.K. Waterhouse in 1947, is in the NG Library. (Back to text.)

9. The Diary of Joseph Farington, vol. 2, p. 350 (7 June 1795). (Back to text.)

10. John Young, A Catalogue of the Pictures at Leigh Court, near Bristol; the seat of Philip John Miles, Esq., M.P., London 1822, p.19, where said to have come from the Palazzo Colonna. Troward was presumably the lawyer Richard Troward in whose sale of 6–7 March 1803 were three paintings attributed to Poussin: Index of Paintings Sold, vol. 1, pp. 567, 1036. (Back to text.)

11. According to a photographed copy of the catalogue with manuscript additions, which also identify the vendor as ‘Mr Troward of Pall Mall’. Another inscription, immediately following the catalogue entry (which identifies the painting as ‘N. Poussin… A bachanalian…from collection of the Count du Veudreul’) reads ‘5. & 51/2 4. in grn. light yellow’. Smith 1837 confuses NG 42 and NG 62. The painting in Richard Walker’s sale of 1803 was NG 42, and that in the Troward sale of 1807 was NG 62: see Smith, nos 221 and 222. (Back to text.)

12. Manuscript additions to the catalogue (photograph copy in the NG Library) identify the vendor and the price, and a further manuscript addition in the right margin reads: ‘53½ p. 10 figs. Blue yelw [illegible] [? illegible]’, that is, 5 × 3½ panel, 10 figures. Described in Kinnaird Collection; or Cabinet Picture Gallery, London 1809, as from the collection of ‘the Compte de Vergennes’. See also George Redford, Art Sales: a history of sales of pictures and other works of art, 2 vols, London 1888, vol. 1, p. 109. (Back to text.)

13. The information that NG 62 was withdrawn from the sale and sold privately to Delahante derives from a manuscript note in the copy of the catalogue in the NG Library. Although the note states the buyer to be Delahante or another French dealer, Pierre Joseph Lafontaine, it was apparently the former: Whitley 1928, pp. 213–14. (Back to text.)

14. Whitley 1928, Farington relates: ‘[Ward] told me that Lord Kinnaird sold his 3 pictures viz: Bacchus & Ariadne by Titian, The Judgement of Paris by Rubens; & [blank] for 6500 guineas to [blank] the picture [dealer] & that these pictures are now in the possession of Baseley.’ (Entry for 19 June 1813: The Diary of Joseph Farington, vol. 12, p. 4375.) (Back to text.)

15. Catalogue of the British Institution exhibition of 1816, and see [Rev. James Dallaway], An Account of all the Pictures as exhibited in the rooms of the British Institution from 1813 to 1823, London 1824, pp. 116–17. NG 62 was seen in Hamlet’s house in Cavendish Square by John Smith in 1823: Index of Paintings Sold, vol. 3, p. 771. (Back to text.)

16. Return (Pursuant to an Order of the House of Lords, dated 13th July 1869) of All Pictures purchased for the National Gallery, London 1869, p. 1. (Back to text.)

17. Réveil and Duchesne aîné, Musée de Peinture et de Sculpture, 14 vols, Paris and London 1828–33, vol. 10 (1831), no. 671. (Back to text.)

18. According to Thuillier in Poussin Colloque 1958, vol. 2, p. 292, and it so appears from the small photograph in the NG dossier. (Back to text.)

19. Note from the Curator of the Musée Municipal, Vire, dated 7 November 1996. (Back to text.)

20. P. Butet‐Hamel, Catalogue Sommaire des Peintures…exposés au Musée de Vire, Vire 1909, no. 43. (Back to text.)

21. Noted by Pierre Rosenberg in Paris 1994–5, p. 210, and seen by him in 1973 in the Paris home of a now deceased collector (letter of 24 November 1997). (Back to text.)

22. Grautoff 1914, no. 31. (Back to text.)

23. Blunt 1966, p. 102. (Back to text.)

24. Sidney, 16th Earl of Pembroke, A Catalogue of the Paintings & Drawings of the Collection at Wilton House Salisbury, Wiltshire, London and New York 1968, no. 187, where published as an autograph sketch for NG 62. (Back to text.)

25. For three drawings of bacchanals before a term which have in the past been attributed to Poussin but are rejected by Rosenberg and Prat: see R‐P. R 368, R741 and R 1202. In R 741, considered by Oberhuber to be by Poussin (Fort Worth 1988, pp. 177–9), there is a sleeping putto in the left foreground like that at the left of NG 62; otherwise none of the drawings, even if by Poussin, can be related to NG 62. (Back to text.)

26. Clayton 1995, pp. 75–7. (Back to text.)

27. Brigstocke 1995, pp. 60–3, at p. 63. (Back to text.)

28. P. Rosenberg, ‘Poussin drawings from British collections’, BM , 133, 1991, pp. 210–13 at p. 211. (Back to text.)

29. Brigstocke 1995, pp. 61–2. (Back to text.)

[page 295]

30. BM , 138, 1996, pp. 467–8. (Back to text.)

31. Master Drawings, vol.34, no. 4, 1996, p.426. (Back to text.)

32. Edinburgh 1981, p. 41. (Back to text.)

33. Rosenberg 1982, pp. 376–80, at p. 379, n.1. (Back to text.)

34. Richard Walker, ‘Henry Bone’s Pencil Drawings in the National Portrait Gallery’, The Walpole Society, 61, 1999, pp. 305–67 at p. 356. (Back to text.)

35. M. Préaud, ‘Jacques van Merle. A Flemish Dealer in Paris’, Print Quarterly, vol. 1, 1984, pp. 81–95, according to whom Van Merle was in Paris by 1646 (p. 82), and the etching was by Dorigny and first published by Huart and then by Van Merle (p. 90 and n. 72). (Back to text.)

36. M. Grivel, Le Commerce de l’Estampe à Paris au XVIIe siècle, Geneva 1986, p. 165. (Back to text.)

37. Report of the Select Committee on the National Gallery, London 1853, paras 4771–2. (Back to text.)

38. White and Pilc 1996, pp. 91–103, at pp. 93, 98–9 and 102, n. 45. (Back to text.)

39. For a summary of its earlier conservation history, see London 1947, no. 60. (Back to text.)

40. Davies 1946, p. 75, and Davies 1957, p. 172. (Back to text.)

41. Blunt 1967, p. 144. (Back to text.)

42. See Cifani and Monetti 1994, pp. 749–807 at p. 765 and p. 800, n. 71. (Back to text.)

43. Blunt 1967, no. 140. (Back to text.)

44. Ovid, Remedia Amoris, trans. by J.H.Mozley, Loeb edn, 1929, p. 233. (Back to text.)

45. Mahon 1965, pp. 113–42, at p. 135. (Back to text.)

46. Mahon, 1962b, p. 94. (Back to text.)

47. NG 62 was dated 1633–4 by Denis Mahon in Mahon 1962a, pp. 175–6, and in Mahon, Poussiniana, 1962b, p. 83; it was dated 1633 by H. Brigstocke in Brigstocke 1982a, p. 240, but 1634–5 by him in Oxford 1990–1, no. 28; dated 1631–3 by J. Thuillier in Thuillier 1974, p. 94, and in Thuillier 1994, p. 252; and 1632–3 by P. Rosenberg in Paris 1994–5, p. 210. (Back to text.)

48. L. Barroero, ‘Nuove acquisizioni per la cronologia di Poussin’, Bollettino d’Arte, LXIV, 4, October–December 1979, pp. 69–74. (Back to text.)

49. Plutarch’s Life of Pyrrhus, II, 3. (Back to text.)

50. For dating of NG 62 by others, see under Exhibitions and note 47 above. NG 62 was dated to 1633 by me in Wine 1995 at p. 52. (Back to text.)

51. Costello 1950, p. 278. (Back to text.)

52. See Mahon 1999, no. 10. (Back to text.)

53. Davies 1957, p. 173. (Back to text.)

54. Clayton 1995, cited in note 26, no. 47. (Back to text.)

55. As Martin Clayton has pointed out in a manuscript note. (Back to text.)

56. MS note. (Back to text.)

57. Edinburgh 1981, pp. 41–2 and fig. 7. (Back to text.)

58. On Poussin and Philostratus, see, for example, Thuillier 1994, pp. 37–8, and Rosenberg in Paris 1994–5, p. 153. The engraving appears on p. 552 of the 1615 edition of Blaise de Vigenère’s translation of Philostratus’ Imagines. It has also been suggested that the group of figures in NG 62 derives from Peruzzi’s Apollo and the Muses (Florence, Pitti Palace), of which a print was made by Thomassin in 1615: G. Kauffmann, ‘Peruzzis Musenreigen’, Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Instituts in Florenz, XI, December 1963–September 1965, pp. 55–62. (Back to text.)

59. Paris 1994–5, p. 210. John Smith also identified the four dancing figures with the Seasons: Smith 1837, no. 221. (Back to text.)

60. For Poussin’s use of a circular dance as a visual metaphor for continuity, see his Dance to the Music of Time (London, Wallace Collection), in which each of the dancing figures is also distinctly identifiable as Poverty, Labour, Wealth and Pleasure: R. Beresford, A Dance to the Music of Time by Nicolas Poussin, London 1995. The Wallace Collection picture is now generally agreed to date from 1634–5. (Back to text.)

61. Levi 1985. (Back to text.)

62. A painting like NG 62, once at Vire but now destroyed, was formerly at the Château de Montmorency until the time of the French Revolution, when it was bought by Robert Mérimée (see under Related Works: Paintings (3)). Both when bought by Mérimée and when at Vire, the painting was regarded as autograph, but by analogy with the copy of Poussin’s Triumph of Pan (NG 6477) now at Tours but once at the Château de Richelieu, it may have been a copy, rather than an autograph replica, of NG 62, and NG 62 may have been replaced with a copy at Montmorency.

Another possibility is that Henry Hurault, comte de Cheverny, reconstructed the Château de Cheverny near Blois in 1634 and decorated the (now destroyed) loggia with Bacchanals by Poussin (see Bonnaffé 1884, p. 62). This date would fit with the likely date of NG 62. Félibien in his life of Poussin in effect states that Poussin executed the Cheverny Bacchanals before, and possibly some years before, he went to Rome (Entretiens 1685, p. 244, and Entretiens 1685–88, vol. 2, pp. 312–13), and in his Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire des maisons royales, written in 1681 (ed. A. de Montaiglon, Paris 1874, p. 65) he asserts that Poussin was extremely young when he painted these pictures, which were by then ‘assez gastées’. However, the local historian Jean Bernier in his Histoire de Blois, Paris 1682, gives a different account, referring to there being at the château ‘une Bacchanelle de la bonne manière de Poussin, qu’on ne conserve pas assez’ (p. 89), so suggesting a work of Poussin’s Roman period. But even if Bernier’s evidence were to be preferred, the generally good condition of NG 62 would seem to exclude it from being the picture described by him. Thuillier has recently proposed c. 1617 as a date for the Cheverny Bacchanals: Thuillier 1995, p. 47. See Blunt 1966, p. 162, for a note of other now lost Bacchanals recorded as by Poussin. (Back to text.)

63. See note 35. (Back to text.)

64. Waagen 1854, vol. 1, pp. 344–5. For some other expressions of admiration for the picture, see Landseer 1834, pp. 312 ff., and A. Lavice, Revue des Musées d’Angleterre, Paris 1867, p. 56. For William Hazlitt’s comment on NG 62, see Verdi 1981, pp. 1–18 at p. 12. For a less enthusiastic response, see Foggo 1845, p. 24. (Back to text.)

Abbreviations

BM
Burlington Magazine, London, 1903–
R.‐P.
Rosenberg and Prat 1994

List of references cited

Andresen 1962
Andresen, A., ‘Catalogue des Graveurs de Poussin par Andresen’abbreviated and translated by Georges Wildenstein, Gazette des Beaux‐Arts, 1962, 60, 139–202
Badt 1969
Badt, K., Die Kunst des Nicolas Poussin, 2 vols, Cologne and etc. 1969
Bailey 1991–2
Bailey, C.B., The Loves of the Gods. Mythological Painting from Watteau to David (exh. cat. Paris, Philadelphia and Fort Worth 1991–2), 1991–2
Barroero 1979
Barroero, L., ‘Nuove acquisizioni per la cronologia di Poussin’, Bollettino d’Arte, 1979, 64, 69–74
Beresford 1995
Beresford, R., A Dance to the Music of Time by Nicolas Poussin, London 1995
Bernini Pezzini, Massari and Prosperi Valenti Rodinò 1985
Bernini Pezzini, Grazia, Stefania Massari and Simonetta Prosperi Valenti Rodinò, Raphael invenit: Stampe da Raffaello nelle collezioni dell’Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica (exh. cat. Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica, Rome), Rome 1985
Blaise de Vigenère 1615
Blaise de Vigenère, Les Images ou Tableaux de platte peinture Philostrates Sophistes Grecs mis en François par Blaise de Vigenère, Paris 1615
Blunt 1960
Blunt, A., Exposition Nicolas Poussin (exh. cat. Musée du Louvre, Paris, 1960), 1960
Blunt 1966
Blunt, A., The Paintings of Nicolas Poussin. A Critical Catalogue, London 1966
Blunt 1967
Blunt, A., Nicolas Poussin. The A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts 1958, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, New York and London 1967
Bonnaffé 1884
Bonnaffé, E., Dictionnaire des amateurs français au XVIIe siècle, Paris 1884
Brigstocke 1981
Brigstoke, H., Poussin, Sacraments and Bacchanals: Paintings and Drawings on sacred and profane themes by Nicolas Poussin 1594–1665 (exh. cat. National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1981), 1981
Brigstocke 1982
Brigstocke, Hugh, William Buchanan and the nineteenth‐century Art Trade: 100 Letters to his Agents in London and Italy, London 1982
Brigstocke 1990a
Brigstocke, H., A Loan Exhibition of Drawings by Nicolas Poussin from British Collections (exh. cat. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 1990–1), 1990
Brigstocke 1995
Brigstocke, H., ‘The Mystery of Poussin’s drawings. New clues, new solutions, and the inevitable red herring’, Apollo, November 1995, 142, 60–3
Buchanan 1824
Buchanan, William, Memoirs of Painting, with a Chronological History of the Importation of Pictures by the Great Masters into England since the French Revolution, 2 vols, London 1824
Butet‐Hamel 1909
Butet‐Hamel, P., Catalogue Sommaire des Peintures…exposés au Musée de Vire, Vire 1909
Cifani and Monetti 1994
Cifani, A. and F. Monetti, ‘Poussin dans les collections piémontaises aux XVIIe, XVIIIe et XIXe siècles’, in Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665). Actes du colloque organisé au musée du Louvre par le Service culturel du 19 au 21 octobre 1994, 2 vols, Paris 1996, 747–807
Clayton 1995
Clayton, M., Poussin. Works on Paper, Drawings from the Collection of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, London 1995
Clayton 1996
Clayton, in Burlington Magazine, 1996, 138, 467–8
Clément de Ris 1877
Clément de Ris, L., Les Amateurs d’autrefois, Paris 1877
Complete Peerage 1910–59
Doubleday, H.A., Lord Howard de Walden, G.H. White and R.S. Lea, eds, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct, or Dormant, 12 or 13 vols, 2nd edn, London 1910–59
Costello 1950
Costello, J., ‘The Twelve Pictures “Ordered by Velasquez” and the Trial of Valguarnera’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 1950, 13, 237–84
Dallaway 1824
Dallaway, J., An account of all the pictures as exhibited in the rooms of the British Institution from 1813 to 1823…, London 1824
Davies 1946
Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: The French School, London 1946 (revised 2nd edn, London 1957)
Davies 1957
Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: The French School, 2nd edn, revised, London 1957
Davies and Blunt 1962
Davies, M. and A. Blunt, ‘Some Corrections and Additions to M. Wildenstein’s “Graveurs de Poussin au XVIIe Siècle”’, Gazette des Beaux‐Arts, 1962, 60, 205–22
Duchesne 1828–33
Duchesne, aîné, Musée de peinture et de sculpture ou recueil des principaux tableaux statues et bas‐reliefs des collections publiques et particulières de l’Europe, 14 vols, Paris 1828–33
Engravings from the Pictures of the National Gallery, London 1840
Farington 1978–98
Farington, Joseph, The Diary of Joseph Farington, eds Kenneth Garlick, Angus Macintyre and Kathryn Cave, index compiled by Evelyn Newby (vols I–VI ed. Kenneth Garlick and Angus Macintyre; vols VII–XVI ed. Kathryn Cave), 16 vols, New Haven and London 1978–98
Félibien, Entretiens 1685 and Entretiens 1685–88
Félibien, A., Entretiens sur les vies et sur les ouvrages des plus excellens peintres anciens et modernes (The Entretiens was a multi‐part work, the first part of which was published in 1666 and the last in 1679. It was then republished in two volumes. The first volume, containing the first five Entretiens, bears a publication date of 1685 but was first printed in this edition in 1686, according to an extract on the privilège du roy bound into the British Library copy (Shelfmark: 134.a.6–7). The second volume, containing the life of Poussin, was published under the same privilège in 1688.), 3 vols, Paris 1666–79
Félibien 1874
Montaiglon, A. de, ed., Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire des maisons royales, Paris 1874
Foggo 1845
Foggo, G., A Catalogue of the Pictures in the National Gallery with critical notes, London 1845
Fredericksen 1988–96
Fredericksen, Burton, ed., assisted by Julia I. Armstrong and Doris A. Mendenhall, The Index of Paintings Sold in the British Isles during the Nineteenth Century (I (1801–5), Santa Barbara 1988; II (1806–10), 2 vols, Santa Barbara 1990; III (1811–15), 2 vols, Munich, London, New York and Paris 1993; IV (1816–20), 2 vols, Santa Monica 1996 (revised versions of these volumes can be consulted online)), 4 vols (10 parts), Oxford, Santa Barbara, Munich, London, New York, Paris and Santa Monica 1988–96
Graham 1820
Graham, M., Memoirs of the Life of Nicholas Poussin, London 1820
Grautoff 1914
Grautoff, O., Nicolas Poussin: sein Werk und sein Leben, Munich 1914
Grivel 1986
Grivel, M., Le Commerce de l’Estampe à Paris au XVIIe siècle, Geneva 1986
Harris 1996
Harris, A.S., in Master Drawings, 1996, 34, no. 4
Kauffmann 1963–5
Kauffmann, G., ‘Peruzzis Musenreigen’, Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, December 1963–September 1965, XI, 55–62
innaird collection 1809
Kinnaird collection; or cabinet picture gallery, London 1809
Landon 1813
Landon, C.P., Vie et oeuvre complète de Nicolas Poussin, Paris 1813
Landseer 1834
Landseer, John, A Descriptive, Explanatory, and Critical Catalogue of Fifty of the Earliest Pictures contained in the National Gallery of Great Britain, London 1834
Lavice 1867
Lavice, A., Revue des Musées d’Angleterre, Paris 1867
Levi 1985
Levi, H., ‘L’inventaire après décès du cardinal de Richelieu’, Archives de l’Art français, 1985, N.P., 27, 9–83
Magne 1914
Magne, E., Nicolas Poussin premier peintre du Roi 1594–1665, Brussels and Paris 1914
Mahon 1962a
Mahon, D., ‘entries’, in L’Ideale Classico del Seicento in Italia e la Pittura di Paesaggio (exh. cat.), Bologna 1962
Mahon 1962b
Mahon, D., Poussiniana. Afterthoughts arising from the exhibition, Paris 1962
Mahon 1965
Mahon, D., ‘A Plea for Poussin as a Painter’, in Walter Friedländer zum 90. Geburtstag, Berlin 1965, 113–42
Mahon 1999
Mahon, D., Nicolas Poussin. Works from his First Years in Rome, Jerusalem 1999
Mérot 1990a
Mérot, A., Nicolas Poussin, London 1990
National Gallery. A Selection of its Pictures. Engraved by George Doo…and others, London 1875
National Gallery of Pictures by the Great Masters presented by Individuals or purchased by grant of Parliament, 2 vols, London n.d. [1838?]
Oberhuber 1988
Oberhuber, K., Poussin: the early years in Rome: the origins of French classicism, Oxford 1988
Original Designs 1812
Original Designs of the most celebrated masters in His Majesty’s Collection, London 1812
Ovid, Remedia Amoris
Ovid, Remedia Amoris, trans.  J.H. Mozley, Loeb Classical Library, London 1929
Pemboke 1968
Sidney, 16th Earl of Pembroke, A Catalogue of the Paintings & Drawings of the Collection at Wilton House Salisbury, Wiltshire, London and New York 1968
Plutarch, Life of Pyrrhus
Plutarch, Life of Pyrrhus
Poussin Colloque 1960
Nicolas Poussin [Actes du Colloque] Paris 19–21 Septembre 1958, 2 vols, Paris 1960
Préaud 1984
Préaud, M., ‘Jacques van Merle. A Flemish Dealer in Paris’, Print Quarterly, 1984, 1, 81–95
Pressly 1981
Pressly, W.L., The Life and Art of James Barry, New Haven and London 1981
Redford 1888
Redford, G., Art Sales. A History of Sales of Pictures and other Works of Art, 2 vols, London 1888
Report 1853
Report from the Select Committee on the National Gallery, London 1853
Return … of All Pictures 1869
Return (Pursuant to an Order of the House of Lords, dated 13th July 1869) of All Pictures purchased for the National Gallery, London 1869
Robert‐Dumesnil 1835–65
Robert‐Dumesnil, A.‐P.‐F., Le Peintre‐Graveur Français, 9 vols, Paris 1835–65
Rosenberg 1982
‘Edinburgh – Poussin considered’, Burlington Magazine, 1982, 124, 376–80
Rosenberg 1991
Rosenberg, P., ‘Poussin drawings from British collections’, Burlington Magazine, 1991, 133, 210–13
Rosenberg 1994
Rosenberg, P., Nicolas Poussin, 1594–1665 (exh. cat. Paris, Grand Palais, 1994–5), 1994
Rosenberg and Prat 1994
Rosenberg, Pierre and Louis‐Antoine Prat, Nicolas Poussin 1594–1665: Catalogue raisonné des dessins, 2 vols, Milan 1994
Shorter Oxford English Dictionary 1975
The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd edn with corrections, Oxford 1975
Smith 1837
Smith, John, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French Painters … (with Supplement), vol. 8, French Painters, London 1837
Thiéry 1787
Thiéry, Luc‐Vincent, Guide des amateurs et des étrangers voyageurs à Paris: ou description raisonnée de cette ville, de sa banlieue, & de tout ce qu’elles contiennent de remarquable, 2 vols, Paris 1787
Thuillier 1974
Thuillier, J., L’opera completa di Poussin, Milan 1974
Thuillier 1994a
Thuillier, J., Nicolas Poussin, Paris 1994
Thuillier 1995
Thuillier, J., Poussin before Rome 1594–1624, London 1995
Trumbull 1953
Trumbull, John, The Autobiography of Colonel John Trumbull, patriot‐artist, 1756–1843, ed. Theodore Sizer, New Haven 1953
Verdi 1981
R., Verdi, ‘Hazlitt and Poussin’, Keats‐Shelley Memorial Association Bulletin, 1981, 32, 1–18
Verdi 1995
Verdi, Richard, Nicolas Poussin 1594–1665 (exh. cat. Royal Academy, London, 1995), London 1995
Waagen 1854–7
Waagen, Gustav Friedrich, Treasures of Art in Great Britain: Being an Account of the Chief Collections of Paintings, Drawings, Sculptures, Illuminated Mss., &c. &c., ed. and trans. Lady E. Eastlake, 3 vols, London 1854 (Galleries and Cabinets of Art in Great Britain, London 1857, supplement (vol. 4))
Walker 1999
Walker, Richard, ‘Henry Bone’s pencil drawings in the National Portrait Gallery’, The Walpole Society, 1999, 61, 305–67
White and Pilc 1996
White, Raymond and Jennifer Pilc, ‘Analyses of Paint Media’, National Gallery Technical Bulletin, 1996, 17, 91–103
Whitley 1928
Whitley, W.T., Art in England 1800–1820, Cambridge 1928
Wild 1980
Wild, D., Nicolas Poussin, 2 vols, Zurich 1980
Wildenstein 1967
Wildenstein, D., Inventaires après décès d’artistes et de collectionneurs français du XVIIIe siècle, Paris 1967
Wine 1995
Wine, H., ‘“Poussin Problems” at the National Gallery’, Apollo, March 1995, 141, 25–8
Wright 1985a
Wright, C., Poussin paintings: a catalogue raisonné, London 1985
Wright1985b
Wright, C., Masterpieces of reality: French 17th century painting (exh. cat. Leicester 1985–6), 1985
Young 1822
Young, John, A Catalogue of the Pictures at Leigh Court, near Bristol; the Seat of Philip John Miles, Esq. M. P. with Etchings from the Whole Collection, London 1822

List of exhibitions cited

Edinburgh 1981
Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland, Poussin, Sacraments and Bacchanals: Paintings and Drawings on sacred and profane themes by Nicolas Poussin 1594–1665, 1981 (exh. cat.: Brigstocke 1981)
London 1795
London, Savile Row, Bryan’s Gallery, 1795
London 1801
London, European Museum, The plan and new descriptive catalogue of the European Museum, King Street, St James’s Square, 1801
London 1816, British Institution
London, British Institution, Catalogue of pictures of the Italian and Spanish Schools, 1816
London 1945
London, National Gallery, Fifty‐four pictures on exhibition at the reopening of the Gallery 17th May 1945, 1945
London, National Gallery, An Exhibition of Cleaned Pictures (1936–1947), 1947–8
London 1995, Royal Academy
London, Royal Academy, Nicolas Poussin. 1594–1665, 1995 (exh. cat.: Verdi 1995)
Oxford 1990–1
Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, A Loan Exhibition of Drawings by Nicolas Poussin from British Collections, 1990–1 (exh. cat.: Brigstocke 1990a)
Paris 1960
Paris, Musée du Louvre, Exposition Nicolas Poussin, 1960 (exh. cat.: Blunt 1960)
Paris 1994–5, Grand Palais
Paris, Grand Palais, Nicolas Poussin, 1594–1665, 1994–5 (exh. cat.: Rosenberg 1994)

The Organisation of the Catalogue

This is a catalogue of the seventeenth‐century French paintings in the National Gallery. It includes one painting by a Flemish artist (NG 2291 by Jakob Ferdinand Voet) and two which may or may not be French (NG 83 and NG 5448). An explanation of how the terms ‘French’ and ‘seventeenth‐century’ are here used, are given in the Preface.

The artists are catalogued in alphabetical order. Under each artist, autograph works come first, followed by works in which I believe the studio played a part, then those which are entirely studio productions or later copies. Where there is more than one work by an artist, they are arranged in order of acquisition – that is, in accordance with their inventory numbers.

Each entry is arranged as follows:

TITLE: I have adopted the traditional title of each painting, except where it might be misleading to do so.

DATE: Where a work is inscribed with its date, the date is recorded immediately after the note of media and measurements, together with any other inscriptions. Otherwise, the date is given immediately below the title; an explanation for the choice of date is provided in the body of the catalogue entry.

MEDIA AND MEASUREMENTS: All the paintings have been physically examined and measured by Paul Ackroyd (or in the case of NG 165 by Larry Keith) and myself. Height precedes width. Measurements are of the painted surface (ignoring insignificant variations). Additional information on media and measurements, where appropriate, is provided in the Technical Notes.

SIGNATURE AND DATE: The information derives from the observations of Paul Ackroyd, Larry Keith and myself during the course of examining the paintings. The use of square brackets indicates letters or numerals that are not visible but may reasonably be assumed once to have been so.

Provenance: I have provided the birth and death dates, places of residence and occupations of earlier owners where these are readily available, for example in The Dictionary of National Biography, La Dictionnaire de biographie française, The Complete Peerage and Who was Who. Since I have generally not acknowledged my debt to these publications in individual notes, I am pleased to do so here. In some cases basic information about former owners is amplified in the notes.

Exhibitions: Although they are not strictly exhibitions, long‐term loans to other collections have been included under this heading (but do not appear in the List of Exhibitions forming part of the bibliographical references at the back of the catalogue). Exhibitions are listed in date order. A number in parentheses following reference to an exhibition is that assigned to the painting in the catalogue of the exhibition.

Related Works: Dimensions have been given for paintings, where known, and these works may be assumed to be oil on canvas unless otherwise indicated. I have not given dimensions or media for drawings and prints, except for those that are illustrated, where these details are given in the caption.

Technical Notes: These derive from examination of the paintings by, and my discussions with, Martin Wyld, Head of Conservation, and Paul Ackroyd and Larry Keith of the Conservation Department; from investigation of the paintings by Ashok Roy, Head of the Scientific Department, and his colleagues Raymond White and Marika Spring; and from the publications and articles (mainly in various issues of the National Gallery Technical Bulletin) referred to in the relevant notes.

In the discussion of each painting I have tried to take account of information and opinions that were in the public domain before the end of 2000. Exceptionally, because I knew in advance that Poussin’s Annunciation (NG 5472) would be lent to an exhibition held at the Louvre, Paris, early in 2001, I have mentioned, albeit in a note and without discussion, Marc Fumaroli’s suggestion in the exhibition catalogue concerning the picture’s original function. Except where otherwise indicated, translations are my own and biblical quotations are from the Authorised Version (King James Bible).

General References: In the case of pictures acquired by 1957, I have included a reference to Martin Davies’s French School catalogue of that year; I have referred to his 1946 catalogue only when there was some material development in his views between the two dates. In the case of subsequently acquired paintings, I have referred to the interim catalogue entry published in the relevant National Gallery Report. In addition, General References include relevant catalogues of pictures (not necessarily catalogues raisonnés), but not other material.

List of Publications Cited: This includes only publications referred to more than once.

List of Exhibitions: This is a list both of exhibitions in which the paintings here catalogued have appeared and of exhibition catalogues cited in the notes. The list is in date order.

About this version

Version 1, generated from files HW_2001__16.xml dated 07/03/2025 and database__16.xml dated 09/03/2025 using stylesheet 16_teiToHtml_externalDb.xsl dated 03/01/2025. Structural mark-up applied to skeleton document in full; document updated to use external database of archival and bibliographic references; entries for NG30, NG61, NG62, NG1449, NG2967, NG4919, NG5597, NG5763, NG6331, NG6471, NG6477 and NG6513 prepared for publication.

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Chicago style
Wine, Humphrey. “NG 62, A Bacchanalian Revel before a Term1”. 2001, online version 1, March 9, 2025. https://data.ng.ac.uk/0E9G-000B-0000-0000.
Harvard style
Wine, Humphrey (2001) NG 62, A Bacchanalian Revel before a Term1. Online version 1, London: National Gallery, 2025. Available at: https://data.ng.ac.uk/0E9G-000B-0000-0000 (Accessed: 20 March 2025).
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Wine, Humphrey, NG 62, A Bacchanalian Revel before a Term1 (National Gallery, 2001; online version 1, 2025) <https://data.ng.ac.uk/0E9G-000B-0000-0000> [accessed: 20 March 2025]