By Kind Permission of a Private Collection
By Kind Permission of a Private Collection
Gaspard Dughet (known to Ruskin as Gaspard Poussin), Landscape with Abraham and Isaac approaching the Place of Sacrifice (c.1655-60) (Oil on canvas, 152.4 x 195 cm); Number 31, National Gallery. This painting dramatizes Genesis 22, the Old Testament account of the test of Abraham's faith and obedience, in which God called him to sacrifice Isaac, his only son, on a mountain in the region of Moriah. Abraham obeys the command but moments before he slays Isaac, the Angel of the Lord calls out to halt the sacrifice and tells Abraham that his great obedience will be rewarded by God with the promise that his descendants will be blessed. The National Gallery Catalogue argues that the painting was one of two for which 'Dughet received payment from Prince Colonna in February 1660' and that it 'certainly appears in catalogues of the Colonna collection in the late eighteenth century' ( National Gallery Catalogue, p.200). It was bought for the National Gallery with 'the rest of the J.J.Angerstein collection' in 1824 (p.200). Ruskin also mentions the painting in Modern Painters II (1846), in 'Of Imagination Associative', noting that 'the spirit of the composition is solemn and unbroken; it would have been a grand picture if the forms of the mass of foliage on the right, and of the clouds in the centre, had not been hopelessly unimaginative' ( Works, 4.243).
Gaspar Dughet 1615-75
Landscape with Abraham and Isaac approaching the Place of Sacrifice 1655-60
Oil on canvas, 152.4x195cm
Provenance: Colonna collection, Rome, by 1783; bought with the rest of the J.J. Angerstein collection, 1824
Collection: National Gallery, London