Landscape with Polyphemus explained

Landscape with Polyphemus
Other Language 1:French
Other Title 1:Paysage avec Polyphème
Image Upright:1.5
Artist:Nicolas Poussin
Medium:oil on canvas
Dimensions:150 × 198 cm
Museum:Hermitage Museum
City:Saint Petersburg

Landscape with Polyphemus (Paysage avec Polyphème) is a 1649 oil painting by French artist Nicolas Poussin. It is held in the Hermitage Museum, in Saint Petersburg.

Theme

The painting refers to a Spanish literary work La Fábula de Polifemo y Galatea and Ovid's Metamorphoses.[1] It was commissioned by French banker Jean Pointel[2] and depicts characters from Greek mythology. In the foreground pictured are semi-nude nymphs watched by satyrs hidden in the nearby bushes. On green fields behind them people listen to music played on a flute by the Cyclops Polyphemus, who appears to be blended into rocky mountains in the background.

History

In 1722 the painting was acquired for the Spanish king Philip V by Andrea Procaccini, a student of Carlo Maratta.[3] Later, it was part of the collection of a French marquess who sold it in 1772 to a Russian prince, with the help of Denis Diderot, in order to pay a gambling debt.[4] It is now located in Saint Petersburg as part of the Hermitage Museum's collection.[5]

See also

Notes and References

  1. Book: Paulino Arguijo de Estremera . 2015 . Falsa identidad . Tau Editores . 9788416398256 . 2020-05-25 . es.
  2. Book: Anthony Blunt . Anthony Blunt . 1945 . The French Drawings in the Collection of His Majesty the King at Windsor Castle . London . .
  3. Web site: Colección de Felipe V . Miguel Morán Turina . www.museodelprado.es . 2020-05-25 . es.
  4. Youri Zolotov, Natalia Serebriannaïa, Nicolas Poussin, Parkstone International, 2018 (read on line in French). See also Paysage avec Polyphème, copie d'après Nicolas Poussin in the Collection database of the Louvre museum.
  5. Web site: Art works: Landscape with Polyphemus . www.hermitagemuseum.org . 2020-05-25.