By Permission of the Trustees of Dulwich Picture Gallery
By Permission of the Trustees of Dulwich Picture Gallery
Nicolas Poussin, The Nurture of Jupiter (c.1637) (Canvas, 96.2 x 119.6 cm). Dulwich Gallery. Poussin's likely source is Virgil's Georgics. The painting narrates the legend of Jupiter, sixth child of Saturn (Kronos) and Rhea. Jupiter's five older siblings were devoured by Saturn at birth because he believed that one of them might, in time, usurp him as the most powerful of the gods. Rhea contrived to save Jupiter by replacing her new born son with a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes. Saturn swallowed the stone and Jupiter was secretly taken to Mount Ida in Crete. Here he was concealed in a cave and nursed by two nymphs. Poussin's painting features the infant Jupiter being suckled by a goat and carefully watched over by a nymph and a shepherd. The landscape detail of the painting, featuring trees, hills and mountains is important as it indicates that Poussin was skilled in representing nature at this stage in his life ( Wright, Catalogue Raisonné;, p.180). The dating of the painting is debated but is generally believed to be contemporary with Pan and Syrinx (c.1637), Triumph of Neptune and St John Baptising the People (1637). Poussin returned to this subject c.1640 with a more formalised treatment which omits the pastoral emphasis of the earlier painting. In a review of the Dulwich Gallery in 1823 William Hazlitt praised the painting:
In The Education of Jupiter... we are thrown back into the infancy of mythologic lore. The little Jupiter, suckled by a she-goat, is beautifully conceived and expressed; and the dignity and ascendancy given to these animals in the picture is wonderfully happy. They have a very imposing air of gravity indeed, and seem to be by prescription "grand caterers and wet-nurses of the state" of Heaven! ( Hazlitt, Selected Essays, p. 676)
Nicolas Poussin 1594-1665
The Infant Jupiter Suckled by the Goat Amalthea c.1636-9
Oil on canvas, 96.2x119.6cm
Provenance: Blondel de Gagny Collection, Paris, by 1757; his Sale, Remy, Paris, 10/12/1776 (94); Ogilvie Sale, Christie's, 7/3/1778 (85:as ex-Gagny), bt Campbell; Desenfans by 1804 (Insurance List, no.55); Bourgeois Bequest, 1811
Collection: Dulwich Picture Gallery, London