Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) A satyr carrying a nymph on his ...

Hammer

£60,000

Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665)
A satyr carrying a nymph on his back, with putti and a faun in an arcadian landscape
Oil on canvas
Inscribed on the stretcher, possibly by the 2nd Earl of Eldon: 'Silvans and Satyr: This picture belonged to the late Lord Chancellor Eldon. The painting represents Silvans and a Satyr, accompanied by Genii returning homewards. It appears to have been painted by Nicolas Poussin. Eldon 1840.'

Inscribed on a label on the frame: 'Salon d'Entrée, no.24' (possibly with another digit torn away)

Provenance:
Possibly anonymous sale, London, Banqueting House, Whitehall, 2 June 1684, no. 167
(as 'Manner of Nicholas [sic] Poussin', as 'A Woman and two Satyrs');
Possibly collection of Joan Baptista Anthoine, until 1691, inventoried by painters Jan 
Erasmus Quellinus and Pieter van der Willighen (as 'No 169. Een Saterken dragende 
een Vrouken van Poussijn, 150 florins');
With John Blackwood, Soho Square, London, by 1769;
Possibly collection of Duke of St Albans;
Possibly collection of Sir Simon Clarke, Bart. and George Hibbert, Esq.;
Their sale, London, 1802 (as 'Nymph and Satyr, passing a Brook', sold for £105);
Collection of John Scott, 1st Earl of Eldon (1751-1838), Encombe, Dorset;
Thence by descent at Encombe to John, 2nd Earl, 1838;
Thence by descent at Encombe to John, 3rd Earl, 1854;
Collection of Sir Ernest Scott, 1926;
Collection of Colonel Harold Scott, 1953;
Sale, Christie's, South Kensington, 23 January 2007, lot 136 (as 'After Nicolas Poussin');
Where acquired by the present owner

Literature:
Possibly E. Duverger, Antwerpse Kunstinventarissen uit de zeventiende eeuw, Brussels 2009, vol. 12, p. 94, no. 168;
T. J. Standring, Poussin’s Erotica, in: Apollo, March 2009, pp. 88-94, no. 11, illustrated on p. 93

We are grateful to Christopher Wright for independently confirming the attribution to Nicolas Poussin after examination of the present painting in the original.

Timothy Standring dates the present work to 1626-1627. He believes that this composition of Satyr Carrying a Nymph on his Back, with Putti and a Faun in an Arcadian Landscape, is the prime version and, as such, it is a significant addition to the early oeuvre of Nicolas Poussin. A later treatment of the subject from 1629 is conserved in the Gemäldegalerie, Alte Meister, Kassel (inv. no. GK 459). The British Museum, London, holds what appears to be a preparatory drawing for the present work, dated to circa 1626 (inv. no. 1895,0915, 929). Strandring, in comparing the British Museum drawing and the present work to the Kassel composition, notes that the drawing depicts water in the foreground and a forked tree trunk bisecting the figural group of nymph, satyr and putti, which are also features in the present composition, but which are ommitted from the later Kassel version. 

The provenance of the present picture is supported by an engraving by Philippe Joseph Tassaert from Bacchanalians: from the Original Picture Painted by Nic.s Poussin In the Collection of John Blackwood Esq, published on 10 July 1769 by J.Boydell, engraver in Cheapside, London, conserved in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, (inv. no RP-P-OB-33.852).

Dimensions:
(Frame) 48 in. (H) x 38.5 in. (W)
(Canvas) 40 in. (H) x 30 in. (W)