Nicolas Poussin 1594–1665
NG 6477 
The Triumph of Pan

Humphrey Wine, 2001

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

1636

Oil on canvas, 135.9 × 146 cm

Provenance

Painted for Armand‐Jean du Plessis, cardinal de Richelieu (1585–1642), probably by May 1636 and delivered to his château at Richelieu for installation in the Cabinet du Roi;¹ replaced by a copy (now in the Musée des Beaux‐Arts, Tours, see below) possibly after the death of Armand‐Jean de Wignerod du Plessis, duc de Richelieu (1629–1715), but evidently by 1741, when NG 6477 itself was seen in London by Vertue with its companion, The Triumph of Bacchus (Kansas City, Nelson‐Atkins Museum);² sold at Samuel Paris’s sale, 1741/2 (lot 49, £2 52 to Peter Delmé);³ seen at Peter Delmé’s house in Grosvenor Square, London, in 1743 by Vertue;⁴ Delmé sale, Christie’s, 13 February 1790 (lot 62, £950 5s. to Rupile (?) for John, 2nd Earl of Ashburnham (1724–1812) of Ashburnham Place, near Battle, Sussex, and Dover Street, London);⁵ noted by Neale in the drawing room at Ashburnham Place;⁶ Bertram, 4th Earl of Ashburnham (1797–1878) sale, Christie & Manson, 20 July 1850 (lot 64, £1239 to Hume for James Morrison); seen in the Morrison collection at Basildon Park, Berkshire, in 1856–7;⁷ by descent to the Trustees of the Walter Morrison Pictures Settlement at Sudeley Castle, Gloucestershire, from whom purchased in 1982 with help from the NHMF and the NACF .⁸

Exhibitions

London 1882, RA , Exhibition of Works by the Old Masters and by Deceased Masters of the British School (141) (where wrongly said to have been painted for the duc de Montmorenci); London 1914–15, Grosvenor Gallery, III National Loan Exhibition. Pictures from the Basildon Park and Fonthill Collections (3); London 1938, RA , Exhibition of 17th Century Art in Europe (331); Paris 1960, Louvre, Nicolas Poussin (45); Edinburgh 1981, Nicolas Poussin. Sacraments and Bacchanals (18); London 1989, NG , The Artist’s Eye: Bridget Riley (5); Copenhagen 1992 (17); London 1995, RA , Nicolas Poussin, 1594–1665 (29); London 1997, Christie’s, Treasures for Everyone: Saved by the National Art Collections Fund (no catalogue).

Related Works

Paintings

• (1) Paul Fréart de Chantelou showed his copy to Bernini in 1665.⁹ It was in his family until at least 1694;¹⁰
• (2) The copy in the Musée des Beaux‐Arts, Tours (inv. no. 795.1.3; 162 × 142 cm), was confiscated in the years 1790–4 from the château de Richelieu, where it had replaced the original, presumably by 1741 (see Provenance);¹¹
• (3) A copy in the Ashburnham collection was possibly the painting which Reynolds called The Sacrifice to Silenus in his Discourse of 10 December 1776¹² and was in that collection until 1850, when sold at the same sale as NG 6477 (lot 11, 19 guineas to Waters). It may be (7) below;
• (4) A copy once in the Musée des Beaux‐Arts, Béziers (139 × 145 cm), and traditionally attributed to Jacques Stella (1596–1657);¹³
• (5) A copy has been in the Musée des Beaux‐Arts, Rouen (inv. no. 811–9; 145 × 147 cm), since 1809;¹⁴
• (6) A copy is in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, presented in 1867 by Captain Hans Busk (inv. no. 55–1867; 143 × 145 cm);¹⁵
• (7) A good old copy, until recently considered autograph, is in the Louvre (inv. no. R.F. 1941.21; 138 × 157 cm). It was bequeathed by Paul Jamot. The provenance can be traced back only to 1910 and it may be the same as (3) above. This version was copied by Picasso in his studio in 1944,¹⁶ presumably from a photographic reproduction;¹⁷
• (8) A copy (142 × 147 cm) in the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux‐Arts, Paris, apparently given to the institution c. 1850 by the French Government;
• (9) A copy (74 × 61 cm) described as eighteenth century was offered at auction (Millon & Robert, Paris, 27 November 1995, lot 4);
• (10) A seventeenth(?)‐century copy with variants in the left third (oil on canvas, 75 × 64 cm), once in the collection of Doctor Lerat, is in a Paris private collection. Photograph in NG dossier. An X‐radiograph of this work reveals a portrait head of a man underneath.

In La Peinture Parlante (Toulouse 1653) Hilaire Pader describes in verse what seems to be a composite version of the Richelieu Bacchanals, but whether from personal knowledge or not is unclear, or he may be describing another painting by Poussin, now lost.¹⁸

Drawings¹⁹

The drawings listed below are those accepted as autograph in Rosenberg and Prat ( R.‐P. ). They are in a possible chronological order of execution, for the discussion of which see pp. 355–8.²⁰

• (1) Bayonne, Musée Bonnat, inv. no. A1 1671 ( R.‐P. 85) (fig. 7);
• (2) Windsor, Royal Library, inv. no. RL 11902 recto ( R.‐P. 87) (fig. 8);
• (3) Florence, Uffizi, Gabinetto dei Disegni, inv. no. 905e, recto ( R.‐P. 86) (fig. 9);
• (4) Florence, Uffizi, Gabinetto dei Disegni, inv. no. 905e, verso ( R.‐P. 86 v) (fig. 10);
• (5) New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. no. 1998. 225 ( R.‐P. 93) (fig. 11);
• (6) Bayonne, Musée Bonnat, inv. no. A1 1672 ( R.‐P. 84) (fig. 12);
• (7) Bayonne, Musée Bonnat, inv. no. A1 1672 verso ( R.‐P. 84 verso) (fig. 13);
• (8) and (10) Windsor, Royal Library, inv. no. RL 11905 verso ( R.‐P. 83 verso), a sheet on which Poussin made two drawings, here numbered separately (figs 14 and 15);
• (9) Bayonne, Musée Bonnat, inv. no. A1 1669 ( R.‐P. 90) (fig. 16);
• (11) Windsor, Royal Library, inv. no. RL 11995 ( R.‐P. 94) (fig. 17).

Rosenberg and Prat 1994 attribute to Nicolas Chaperon (1612–56) a drawing in Edinburgh which has compositional [page 351][page 352]similarities to The Triumph of Pan ( R.‐P. R378r), and they record the following drawings of the subject of NG 6477 in eighteenth‐century sales, none of which they relate to any of those above: anon. sale, Paris, 21 November 1763, lot 192; Cayeux sale, Paris, 11 December 1769, lot 142; [Lempereur] sale, Paris, 24 May 1773 and days following, lot 450.²¹

A drawn copy of NG 6477 by ‘Mr. Edwards’ was no. 11 in Mr. Boydell’s Exhibition of Drawings from many of the Most Capital Pictures in England at Mr Ford’s Great Room, Hay‐market, London [1770] , where described as ‘A Sacrifice to Pan, In the Collection of Peter Delmé, Esq.’.

Technical Notes

The painting, which was last cleaned and restored for the 1981 Edinburgh exhibition – shortly before its acquisition by the National Gallery – is in good condition, although there is some wear on the top of the plain‐weave canvas threads, a small repaired tear in the bottom centre, retouchings down both edges, and some blanching of the greens to the right of Pan. The painting is on two pieces of canvas joined horizontally across the centre. The canvas was lined, probably early in the nineteenth century. The number 53 written on the back of the lining cannot be connected with any known inventory or auction sale. There is a double ground typical of Poussin, in this case a lower reddish‐brown ground and an upper buff‐coloured one. A pentimento is visible in the line of the left leg of the faun at the extreme right. The trees have been painted over areas left in reserve. To the left of the head of Pan there is an unexplained horizontal line of paint which then goes down at an angle. The X‐radiograph (fig. 1) shows a shape at top centre which could be a bull (evidence perhaps of another treatment of The Adoration of the Golden Calf), but it is difficult to read. Pigment analysis shows a similar composition to that of the The Triumph of Silenus (NG 42), for which see the Technical Notes of that entry. The paint medium is linseed oil.²²

Discussion

Although the picture is called The Triumph of Pan, the term at the centre of the composition may equally be Priapus, since both were described by ancient authors as red or (in the case of Priapus) red‐faced,²³ and their mythological functions overlapped, both being associated with fertility and pastoral life. The bent stick and the pipes refer to Pan, but the garlands of flowers around the term suggest Priapus, as does the placing of drapery over what would be his most clearly identifying feature, a phallus, significantly shown clearly in one of the preparatory drawings at Bayonne (fig. 12). But for the lack of horns, it might be possible to identify the seated satyr at the right as Pan by virtue of his wreath of pine leaves²⁴ – overcome by his love of riotous assembly, he has discarded his stick and pipes.²⁵ Whether Pan or Priapus, the term’s triumph has no known literary source, although there are numerous references by ancient authors to the worship of both deities, and to their involvement in frolicsome bacchic rites. Philostratus describes a painting of Bacchus, god of wine, mentor of Pan and father of Priapus, as untypical because flowered garments, thyrsi and fawn skins were not included, nor were bacchantes clashing cymbals or satyrs playing the flute.²⁶ Other objects discarded in the foreground are associated with Pan or Bacchus: from left to right the pipes (syrinx) which Pan is said to have invented and played; the staff tipped by a pine cone and wrapped with ivy leaves (thyrsus), of which there is another right of centre, which was carried in bacchic rights; the three masks, tragic, comic and satiric, referring to the role of Bacchus as protector of theatres;²⁷ cymbals, tambourines and a trumpet, all symbolic of Pan’s love of riotous noise but also associated with bacchic revelries;²⁸ the bent shepherd’s crook (lagobolon) referring to Pan as god of shepherds and flocks (which Priapus protected also) and as god of the hunt; and a wine jar and saucer of wine. The goat may refer to the sacrificial role of that animal in bacchic rites (see NG 39, p. 278) and to its association with lust; the fawn being carried upside down is presumably being readied for sacrifice, but may also be intended to recall the wearing of fawn skins by the maenads during their ecstasies inspired by Bacchus. The mountainous background is perhaps intended to represent Arcadia, of which Pan was a native god.²⁹

Visual Sources

As Blunt pointed out,³⁰ the composition is based on an engraving of A Sacrifice to Priapus of c. 1532 by the Master of the Die after Giulio Romano (fig. 2), which is in turn a reprise of an ancient sarcophagus then in the Villa Doria‐Pamphilj and drawn for the Museo Cartaceo (Paper Museum) of Poussin’s patron, Cassiano dal Pozzo.³¹ Although it seems unlikely that Poussin had direct knowledge of the five pictures bought by Richelieu from the Duke of Mantua for the château de Richelieu, and installed in the Cabinet du Roi there with NG 6477 (and other paintings by Poussin), there is sufficient correspondence between their dimensions and the scale of their figures and those of Poussin’s paintings to suggest that he was aware of their overall appearance; one possibility, among others, is that he may have looked at another series of Renaissance studiolo paintings then in Rome which had been executed by Titian and Bellini for Alfonso d’Este, Isabella’s brother.³² There are numerous references in the Poussin Bacchanals to motifs in Bellini’s Feast of the Gods and Titian’s The Andrians. Some are referred to in the entry to NG 42 (see pp. 376–83). That specific to the present painting is the screen of trees derived from Bellini’s picture. The final composition, as has been frequently noted, is highly formal, its insistent planarity perhaps reflecting Poussin’s perception of Mantegna, and the complex surface pattern possibly indicating a continuing influence on Poussin of Mannerism.³³ Although the screen of trees is evidently inspired by The Feast of the Gods, the arrangement of trees in three groups and largely in the same plane recalls the columns in Poussin’s earlier Triumph of David (Dulwich Picture Gallery) and the groups of trees in his Raphaelesque Apollo and the Muses (Madrid, Prado). The painting’s theme would have recalled Titian, while the modelling of the figures seems inspired by Annibale Carracci.

A number of motifs in NG 6477 are derived from ancient reliefs of bacchic ceremonies and the ritual objects associated with them, which the artist studied both directly and from engravings by Renaissance artists.³⁴ Blunt proposed that Poussin probably knew an engraved illustration of The Worship of Priapus (fig. 3), in which a woman at the right carries on her [page 354]head a basket of fruit similar to the basket of flowers carried on the head of the kneeling satyr at the left of NG 6477,³⁵ and in which a woman in the background at the left holds up a tambourine, rather like the woman at the right of the National Gallery painting. The maenad carrying a sacrificial fawn was probably a reprise of figures having a similar role in antique reliefs or cameos (or drawn or engraved copies after them) – for example, a frieze then in the Villa Albani, Rome, a drawing for which was made for the Museo Cartaceo³⁶ – and may in part have been borrowed from the pose of a bacchante in Giovanni Battista Franco’s engraving of Bacchante with Apollo and Daphne (The Illustrated Bartsch, 32, p. 242). The satyr at right bending over to lift a drunken faun is related to a figure in a sculpted group that was in the Farnese collection in the early seventeenth century (now Naples, Museo Nazionale, inv. no. 6218).³⁷ A similar motif appears in engravings by Franco after carved gems (fig. 5), but Poussin’s borrowings from such sources were in this instance probably indirect, given that a similar stooping figure appears prominently in the foreground of his own Crossing of the Red Sea (Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria, inv. no. 1843/4) painted only a year or two earlier.³⁸

It has been suggested that the figure of the youth at the extreme right of NG 6477 is based on the Borghese Gladiator, then a quite recent (1611) discovery, or on the sculpted group of Paetus and Arria (Rome, Museo Nazionale), which was in the Palazzo Ludovisi on the Pincio in 1633 and which Poussin had cited in his earlier Rape of the Sabines (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art).³⁹ The decoration of the wine jar at the bottom right of NG 6477, with a young bacchante supporting an old one (fig. 4), is based on a Marcantonio Raimondi engraving after an antique relief then in the Villa or Palazzo Albani (fig. 6).⁴⁰ The head which appears on the wine jar to the right of this group is close in type to that in Giovanni Battista Franco’s Ten Subjects after Antique Cameos,⁴¹ but it may be more directly derived from an engraving representing the Portland Vase made by Bernadino Capitelli and published in April 1633.⁴² The vase itself was then in the collection of Cardinal Francesco Barberini and was well known to Poussin’s patron, Cassiano dal Pozzo.⁴³

The related drawings

The number of surviving drawings connected with The Triumph of Pan testifies to both the importance of the commission and the complexity of the composition. As to the development of the composition, it has sometimes been suggested that its starting point was an engraving by the Master of the Die of the Sacrifice to Priapus (fig. 2) after a drawing by Giulio Romano.⁴⁴ However, the emphatic planar composition of that engraving, although eventually adopted for NG 6477, is not common to all the preliminary drawings, and it seems more likely that Poussin’s starting point was the recollection of his drawing (if not the drawing itself), now in the Royal Collection, Windsor (RL 11979; R.‐P. 57; see p. 291, fig. 2), possibly made in preparation for his Bacchanalian Revel before a Term (NG 62). This shares with the earlier drawings for NG 6477 the motif of the term in profile at the right of the image as well as dancing figures before a screen of trees. Numerous still‐life details in the foreground of this drawing also appear both in the final painting and in some of the intermediate drawings; finally, the group of a nymph and satyr at the centre of NG 6477 is an adaptation (with the sexes reversed) of the group at the right of the Bacchanalian Revel before a Term (NG 62). This last group is a variation of the group at the left of the Windsor drawing. Although the Windsor drawing has been dated around 1628–30 by Rosenberg and Prat, and from ‘the end of the twenties’ by Friedländer and Blunt, Clayton, Brigstocke and Mahon have suggested, respectively, c. 1631–2, 1632 and c. 1632–3.⁴⁵ A date for the Windsor drawing of c. 1632 would make it more likely as a starting point for NG 6477. If this is correct – and if it is also correct, as suggested below, that another drawing at Windsor (RL 11905 v, R.‐P. 83 v; fig. 15) represents the final surviving compositional drawing for NG 6477 – it broadly confirms what Friedländer and Blunt identified as the main line of the composition’s development, namely that ‘a design for an ordinary Bacchanal, with the Herm of Pan in a subordinate position, was gradually worked out into a specific Feast or Triumph of Pan, with the Herm as the central point of design’.⁴⁶

A hypothetical chronological order for some of the intermediate drawings may be proposed, starting with one of those in the Musée Bonnat, Bayonne (fig. 7). This is the only one in which an emphatically contrapposto figure blowing a curved trumpet in the right foreground directs attention away from the term towards an altar at the centre. The Bayonne drawing shows the term in profile, as does another drawing at Windsor (fig. 8) which seems to derive from the first, although a slight sketch right of centre in the Windsor drawing shows the term full‐face, suggesting that Poussin may have been toying with the idea of showing the term frontally at this point. It may only have been after this and in a drawing in the Uffizi (fig. 9) that Poussin referred to the engraving by the Master of the Die (fig. 2): on the right of the Uffizi sheet is a corybant blowing a double trumpet as in the engraving, but in reverse, and just right of centre the nymph decorating the term has a pose virtually identical to that of the nymph left of centre in the engraving. At the right is a kneeling figure with a basket on his head who in the final painting will, together with the satyr [page 356]and nymph on the goat, be turned through 180 degrees, transposed to the other side of the image and shown on both knees. This group is then further explored in the top half of the verso of the Uffizi sheet (fig. 10), the bottom half being a study for the Triumph of Bacchus, and then again in a separate study in a drawing in New York (fig. 11), which includes the motif of an urn on a column seen at the extreme left of the recto of the Uffizi drawing (fig. 9). In another drawing in Bayonne (fig. 12) the term (here shown as Priapus rather than Pan) remains on the right and is being decorated by a nymph derived from the female satyr decorating Priapus to the right of centre in the Master of the Die’s engraving. In the foreground is the genesis of the group of three figures that appears in the right foreground of the final painting. Of the drawings so far considered it is the one in which the spatial depth between foreground and background figures is most compressed, as in the painting.⁴⁷

A small sketch (cut at the bottom) at the bottom right of the verso of this Bayonne sheet (fig. 13) may have been made next. It shows the term to have been moved towards the centre of the composition and a figure carrying a faun is near to its [page 357]final position towards the left of the composition. Poussin may then have returned to the Uffizi drawing (fig. 9) and with a thick reed pen roughly sketched in a figure carrying a faun.

What may have been the next drawings executed are the two that appear on the verso of a sheet at Windsor (figs 14 and 15). The larger of these drawings is the only one of the surviving compositional studies whose proportions correspond to those of the painting.⁴⁸ Moreover, this drawing, like the painting, contains obvious vertical accents in the background, and it is the only drawing in which, again like the painting, still‐life elements are given space at the bottom of the image distinct from that of the figures. This drawing would therefore appear to be the first in which Poussin tried to work out not only the various figural permutations, but also the composition as a whole in terms of specified dimensions. If this drawing is indeed a late one in the preparatory process, it suggests either that Poussin was given the dimensions of the commission at the outset and chose to ignore them, or that he was given them only at a relatively late stage. The smaller of the two drawings on this sheet (see fig. 15), presumably done at the same time as the larger, seemingly supports the first hypothesis. However, it is also possible that when Poussin turned the sheet upside down he did not have the space to replicate the proportions of the larger drawing, with the result that the still‐life elements are squashed up in the foreground space.⁴⁹ The distinct vertical accents were, however, retained in the form of trees, albeit modified by garlands adapted from the engraving by the Master of the Die. These accents were here for the first time used to create the three distinct divisions in the background created by the clumps of trees in the painting. Finally, of all the compositional drawings for NG 6477, the larger one (fig. 14) is the only one to show a marked diagonal in depth, here from bottom right to top left. It is as if not only had Poussin just learnt the dimensions of the composition, but The Triumph of Pan was to be the left‐hand partner in a pair, as indeed it turned out to be. The other drawing that probably came late in the preparatory process was another sheet at Bayonne (fig. 16), which develops a motif finally abandoned in the painting, namely that of the dancing bacchante at the left of the larger of the drawings on the Windsor sheet RL 11905 v.

Another drawing at Windsor (fig. 17) is the most finished, and, given its decorative quality, should be regarded as an independent artistic venture rather than as preparatory.⁵⁰ Here, all the figural elements of the painting appear, albeit with minor adjustments, but, as has been frequently noted,⁵¹ the proportions differ. In addition, in the painting the clear verticals of the trees and the sloping ground to the left of Pan’s head emphasise more than in this drawing the geometric structuring of the composition and the focus on the centre of the image. This structuring had been Poussin’s initial idea, as shown in the first Bayonne drawing (fig. 7), but he must have felt that the narrative focus was wrong. Subsequent drawings lack any clear geometry, until the smaller of the Windsor compositional drawings (fig. 15) shows Poussin firmly adopting Giulio Romano’s solution, which – whether or not it had been his starting point – hitherto he seems to [page 358]have been trying to avoid. If what is here proposed as the final drawing (fig. 17) is regarded as an independent work derived from NG 6477, rather than as a preparatory drawing or a ricordo, then the differences between them are less puzzling. The drawing perhaps represents Poussin’s ideal choice among the various configurative options he had been playing with, a choice partially denied him by the requirements of the commission, but which could be freely exercised in a presentation drawing.⁵²

The Paintings in the Cabinet du Roi

NG 6477 and Poussin’s Triumph of Bacchus (Kansas City, Nelson‐Atkins Museum of Art; fig. 18) were painted for cardinal de Richelieu’s château in Poitou. Bellori relates that: Among the other paintings, which Poussin painted for different noblemen in France and in Paris, were some made for Cardinal de Richelieu, particularly four Bacchanals with the triumph of Bacchus, and various fantasies, and wild dancing; these compositions derive precisely from the study of antique marbles and from his poetic invention the product of his most fortunate talent. He also made for the same Cardinal de Richelieu the triumph of Neptune in the midst of the ocean, on his chariot pulled by horses of the sea with a following of Tritons and Nereids.⁵³ Félibien’s account, published sixteen years later, derives from that of Bellori: Among the paintings which [Poussin] had already sent to Paris were four Bacchanals for Cardinal de Richelieu, and a Triumph of Neptune who appears in his chariot pulled by four horses of the sea, and accompanied by a following of Tritons and Nereids. These subjects [were] poetically undertaken with that fine spirit and that admirable art that one could say is so like the spirit of Poets and of the ancient Painters and Sculptors, and so many of his other works, spread as it were throughout Europe, made Poussin’s name celebrated.⁵⁴ Whether or not the Triumph of Neptune, now called The Triumph of Venus (Philadelphia Museum of Art, The George W. Elkins Collection), was executed for Richelieu⁵⁵ – and, if it was, whether it was among or additional to the four Bacchanals mentioned by Bellori and Félibien – it was not part of the same decorative scheme as NG 6477, at least as described by Vignier (see below).

Other early accounts of the château were published by writers with no particular interest in Poussin, or indeed necessarily in painting. Elias Brackenhoffer, who visited the château de Richelieu in 1644, does not mention any paintings by Poussin in his account.⁵⁶ The poem of Desmarets de Saint‐Sorlin, published in 1653, is more informative, but, not unsurprisingly, incomplete. He describes a painting which seems to be that now in Philadelphia, and another which could be the Kansas City Triumph of Bacchus. He mentions Poussin by name, but without making it clear that either painting was by him.⁵⁷ There were by then, in any event, three Triumphs by Poussin in the château de Richelieu. and more specifically in the Cabinet du Roi, as an account of 1646 by Schellinks and Doomer records.⁵⁸ These three paintings were not all delivered at the same time. Two were finished by 19 May 1636, the date on which the Marchese Pompeo Frangipani wrote to Richelieu that he had asked the Bishop of Albi, Gaspard de Daillon, to bring with him from Rome to the cardinal ‘two paintings of Bacchanals which the painter Poussin has already executed in conformity with your wishes and intention’.⁵⁹ These were presumably the same two paintings by Poussin which Daillon, in a letter that is undated but may be of December 1636,⁶⁰ reported to the cardinal as having been brought to the château de Richelieu. Daillon wrote: ‘I have seen [the two paintings by Poussin] with those of Monsieur de Mantoue [from the studiolo of Isabella d’Este recently acquired by Richelieu], which although good in no way approach the beauty and perfection of the two I have brought. That will certainly not prevent them together making the Cabinet du Roi perfectly beautiful.’⁶¹

It has usually been assumed that the two paintings referred to were the Triumph of Bacchus in Kansas City and NG 6477.⁶² They are close in size and were hung next to each other in the Cabinet du Roi (see below), so the assumption is reasonable. Even if it is correct, however, it remains unclear whether the Pan and the Bacchus were installed, or indeed painted, before or after The Triumph of Silenus. This point is further discussed in the entry for NG 42, but it may be mentioned in passing that as late as September 1641 it was anticipated by Mazarin that further paintings would be commissioned for the château.⁶³

The earliest full account of the château, and in particular of the Cabinet du Roi where Poussin’s pictures were situated, is that by Benjamin Vignier, governor of the château from 1662 until 1684,⁶⁴ published in 1676 but quite possibly substantially written by 1665, and dedicated to Armand Jean du Plessis, duc de Richelieu et de Fronsac, nephew of the great cardinal and the then owner of the château and its contents.⁶⁵

Vignier describes the Cabinet du Roi as a room of some ten by twelve metres in area, and some five metres high. It occupied the main floor of the south‐east pavilion of the château. The wall panelling was divided into sections by ten term‐caryatids, between which were panels, some decorated with fleur‐de‐lis on a blue ground, others with battles and triumphs of marine gods. The caryatids supported a cornice placed some two metres above floor level, and the paintings by Poussin were placed between the cornice and the ceiling together with five paintings which Richelieu had acquired from the Mantuan court before 1630 and which had decorated the Studiolo of Isabelle d’Este in Mantua since 1525 or earlier.⁶⁶ According to Vignier, the order in which the paintings were placed was as follows: first above the door was Mantegna’s Minerva expelling the Vices from the Garden of Virtue; to the right of this as one entered the room was another painting by Mantegna ‘dont on ne scait point le sujet’, but which could only have been the picture now called Parnassus; then followed [page 359] [page 360] ‘un banquet de Silene’ by Poussin, which may have been NG 42 or a lost original of which NG 42 is an early copy (see pp. 380–1 for a discussion of its status). Vignier then describes the ‘third painting near to the windows’ as by Lorenzo Costa – it can be identified as the Allegory of the Court of Isabelle d’Este. Opposite this painting was Poussin’s Triumph of Bacchus, next to which was the Triumph of Pan, followed by Perugino’s Combat of Love and Chastity, and finally the Mantegna/Costa Reign of Comus. (All of these paintings, other than those by Poussin, are now in the Louvre.) Inset into the chimney‐piece was a picture by Jacques Stella, The Liberality of Titus (probably the painting called The Liberality of Louis XIII and Richelieu in the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Mass.). In the centre of the ceiling was an oval painting of the deification of Hercules and in each of its four corners were octagonal pictures of cupids carrying the arms of Hercules. This is not necessarily precisely how the Cabinet du Roi was originally intended to look. Poussin’s third Bacchanal may have arrived after the other two, and it appears from the letter which Gaspard de Daillon wrote to Richelieu, possibly in late 1636, that he saw the first two Bacchanals, probably the Pan and the Bacchus, as completing the ensemble (see also under NG 42). Nevertheless, from Vignier’s description and a sketchy plan made in 1800 by Léon Dufourny (fig. 19), John Schloder has recently shown how each of the paintings was sited in the room at the time when Vignier described it.⁶⁷ It can be seen from the plan that two paintings by Poussin were on either side of a window (on the east wall), and from Vignier’s description the Silenus must have been on the opposite wall between Mantegna’s Parnassus and Costa’s Allegory.⁶⁸ Given that Vignier says that Poussin’s Triumph of Bacchus was opposite the Costa Allegory, NG 6477 must have been placed on the left‐hand side of the window, and so opposite Mantegna’s Parnassus.⁶⁹

This plan appears to confirm the assumption hitherto made that the two Bacchanals sent from Rome in 1636 were the Pan and the Bacchus. Daillon’s comment that the two Bacchanals by Poussin which he took with him to the château de Richelieu would, with the Mantua paintings, make the Cabinet du Roi ‘parfaictement beau’ further supports this since it suggests that, even without the Silenus, the addition of the Pan and the Bacchus would have created an approximate symmetry between the opposing walls – approximate because the height of the Pan and Bacchus would have been 12 to 18 cm less than the Mantuan paintings opposite them. The fact that the Silenus would have differed in height from the two Mantuan paintings on either side of it by only 5 cm does suggest that it was designed for the space it occupied.

The date of the removal of Poussin’s paintings from the Cabinet du Roi and their replacement by the copies now in Tours is unclear. When, in the mid‐eighteenth century, the paintings in the room were described, the anonymous author’s enthusiasm for Mantegna, Costa and Perugino did not extend to Poussin, which tends to confirm that the account was written after 1741, when the Pan and Bacchus were certainly in London.⁷⁰ It seems reasonable to assume that although cardinal de Richelieu’s immediate heir, Armand‐Jean de Wignerod du Plessis, duc de Richelieu, made alterations to the château, the paintings by Poussin were still in place in 1665 when Chantelou showed his copies to Bernini, and in 1676 when Vignier published his account. Since the duc de Richelieu spent his summers at the château de Richelieu until the end of the seventeenth century,⁷¹ Poussin’s paintings may well have remained in the Cabinet du Roi until after the duke’s death in 1715. If so, they probably remained there until 1727, when it is thought that the disposal of paintings at Richelieu began,⁷² or more likely until after the second marriage in 1734 of the then duc de Richelieu, Louis‐François‐Armand de Wignerod du Plessis (1696–1788), who then made alterations to the Appartement du Roi at the château.⁷³

Possible meanings of the Richelieu Bacchanals

A number of suggestions have been made in recent years as to the possible meanings of the Richelieu Bacchanals. They have been seen by Santucci as allegories of death and resurrection, based on the parallels drawn between Bacchic and Christian mysteries by some Christian writers, including Blaise de Vigenère in his edition of Philostratus.⁷⁴ This seems unlikely. In an article essentially devoted to the identity of the central female figure in Poussin’s Triumph of Venus in Philadelphia, Dempsey proposed that that painting ‘in common with the other Richelieu Triumphs, may have some reference to a scheme including the four elements, and probably the four seasons as well.’⁷⁵ However, since the Philadelphia painting, even if painted for Richelieu, was not part of the Bacchanal series, as Dempsey soon acknowledged, this also seems unlikely.⁷⁶ Elsewhere Dempsey argued in connection with the Kansas City Triumph of Bacchus that Bacchus was there shown [page 361]not as a divinity of Autumn but in the role of the ‘borderline moment between the fruitful season and the season of death’ in a year which, following the ancients, had only three seasons. Dempsey further argued that the Triumph of Bacchus was one of a number of Poussin’s paintings that were concerned with the themes of time and mutability.⁷⁷ However, he did not discuss either of the other Bacchanals (NG 6477 and The Triumph of Silenus) in this connection, or why these themes and the philosophy underlying them may have been particularly appropriate to cardinal de Richelieu and/or the Cabinet du Roi at the château de Richelieu.⁷⁸

Recently Malcolm Bull has noted that cardinal de Richelieu was specifically associated with Hercules at the château de Richelieu, and proposed that the inclusion of Hercules in the Kansas City painting derived not from study of antique sources but from Poussin’s knowledge of his patron. Bull has proposed that Poussin and Richelieu, like Rabelais, understood that vulgar subjects could allude to serious matters, and that Poussin’s Triumphs of Bacchus, Silenus and Pan at the château of Richelieu, not far from Rabelais’s birthplace near Chinon, could be understood as allegories of the cardinal’s virtues, achievements and lands.⁷⁹

One difficulty with this proposal is that it depends on Richelieu having wished to link his achievements with Chinon at the very time that he was cajoling those in his sphere of influence to live not there, but at his own newly built town of Richelieu just by the château. Both the rebuilt château and the newly built town were showpiece projects linked by name, by proximity to each other and by a connecting avenue.⁸⁰ Secondly, if the Richelieu Bacchanals were conceived, in effect, as a shared joke between patron and painter, they would surely have been better placed in Richelieu’s private apartments than in the Cabinet du Roi. Keazor’s reading of the three paintings as containing through their compositions and still‐life elements a series of specific cross‐references to each other beyond their shared theme depends on NG 6477 having been placed between the Bacchus and the Silenus, something which is questionable.⁸¹ Robin has argued that the Bacchanals were intended to be read together with the paintings from Mantua, the ceiling painting of The Apotheosis of Hercules, and Jacques Stella’s Liberality of Louis XIII and Richelieu over the fireplace, as an iconographically unified decorative ensemble triumphantly evoking the kingdom of France, with The Triumph of Pan and The Triumph of Silenus representing the return of peace, abundance and joy following the military triumphs of Louis XIII (Hercules) in The Triumph of Bacchus.⁸²

Whether or not this is correct – and the subject of Stella’s painting as well as the location of all the paintings in the Cabinet du Roi lend some support to Robin’s thesis – any such underlying meaning seems to have been forgotten by the time Vignier published his account of the château in 1676. According to Vignier, the château’s bacchic theme became quickly apparent to visitors, since ‘Dans la face du Dôme qui regarde les Ecuries il y a un Buste de bronze noir d’un BACCHUS’.⁸³ In fact, the château’s grounds were dotted with busts and statues of Bacchus, including a statue of the god in the courtyard placed above a bust of Cicero.⁸⁴ ‘Do you know why,’ Vignier asked in verse, ‘this god who gives chase to melancholy so esteems [the town of] Richelieu? It is there that a folly can be found which was introduced by wisdom.’ This is not a humorous reference to the cardinal’s efforts to rebuild the château, because as Vignier immediately explains: ‘The inhabitants of Richelieu have never witnessed more wisdom than in planting numerous vines in a previously uncultivated area near the town called the Folly. The wine is extremely good and rivals the best burgundy.’⁸⁵

When it comes to The Triumph of Pan itself, Vignier explains it as a moral lesson against overindulgence: ‘How curious are the evils caused by wine’s vapours! A man overcome by them reveals all his faults. He can hide nothing which he has in his heart; And makes more noise than a goblin. But it’s a lot worse when a woman lets herself get excited by wine. Then she becomes unspeakable, and without much ado a real tart.’⁸⁶ Vignier’s jovial moralising may or may not coincide with the intentions of cardinal de Richelieu and Poussin, but a moralising dialectic would easily have suggested itself to him given the subject matter of some of the Mantuan pictures, namely Mantegna’s Minerva expelling the Vices from the Garden of Virtue and Perugino’s Combat of Love and Chastity.

Critical reception in the nineteenth century

When Waagen saw NG 6477 in the Morrison collection in 1856/7, he called it one of ‘the finest specimens of the master, and … at the same time admirably preserved’.⁸⁷ Earlier in the century the dealer Buchanan had been planning to acquire NG 6477, writing in 1804: ‘Should we not be successful in selling the N. Poussin [The Plague at Ashdod, NG 165] in the course of a Couple of months, probably as it is a picture of so much celebrity, Lord Ashburnham might be inclined to part with one of his Bacchanalian Subjects by that Master for it. I am most partial to the Triumph [of Bacchus] but the [Triumph of Pan] would be the one he would most probably part with as he might substitute the Copy down stairs in its room. [Benjamin] West told me he liked the Term best. The colouring you know is Capital.’⁸⁸ Conceivably, had Buchanan’s plans borne fruit, neither NG 6477 nor NG 165 would now be in the Gallery. Besides the accidents of history, however, Buchanan’s words also reveal the changing perceptions of three paintings. Today NG 165 is recognised as a copy; the Kansas City Triumph of Bacchus has been admitted to Poussin’s oeuvre, albeit with some reluctance; and NG 6477, although once doubted by some in favour of the copy in the Louvre, and still regarded by some as unattractive,⁸⁹ has since the 1981 Edinburgh exhibition been universally accepted as autograph.⁹⁰

General References

Smith 1837, 212; Magne 1914, 32; Grautoff 1914, 85; Blunt 1966, 136; Badt 1969, 94; Thuillier 1974, 90; Wild 1980, 67; Wright 1985a, 82; Wright 1985b, p. 136; Mérot 1990, 128; Thuillier 1994, 112.

Notes

90. Although Blunt suggested studio participation in respect of NG 6477 in his review of the 1981 Edinburgh exhibition in French Studies, 36, 1982, pp. 327–9, and in ‘French Seventeenth Century Painting: the [page 365] Literature of the Last Ten Years’, BM , 124, 1982, pp. 705–11, at p. 707, Rosenberg (Rosenberg 1982, pp. 376–80 at p. 379) stated: ‘Now that it is restored, the Morrison picture is demonstrably superior to the copy in the Louvre and reveals a quality as high as – although no higher than – the [Kansas City] picture, which I have always believed authentic.’ But even before the Edinburgh exhibition, NG 6477 had been exhibited as the autograph version in Paris in 1960, accepted by Mahon in 1962 (Mahon 1962a, p. 100, n. 290), and accepted by Wild in her catalogue raisonné published in 1980.

Thuillier was non‐committal over the respective merits of NG 6477 and the Louvre copy in his 1974 catalogue raisonné, but has acknowledged NG 6477 as the only autograph version in his revised catalogue of 1994. (Back to text.)