The Baptism of Christ

1641/1642

Nicolas Poussin

Artist, French, 1594 - 1665

Twelve people and one child stand, sit, or kneel along a riverbank in this horizontal painting. All the people have pale or tanned skin, and are muscular. They are in various stages of undress, wearing robes of golden yellow, ruby red, petal pink, azure blue, or cream white. To our right of center, a man, Jesus, stands facing us with his arms crossed over his chest. He wears a blue robe wrapped loosely across his shoulders and across his hips. He looks down, his blond hair falling alongside his face, as another man, wearing red, pours water from a shallow dish onto his head. A white dove flies with wings spread overhead. To our right of Jesus, one kneeling person wearing white holds up Jesus’s blue robes and another looks on, wearing a sage green robe and holding a voluminous rose-pink cloth. To our left, a group of five men react by throwing up hands, pointing upward, or looking up. One man with a gray beard and hair stands and bows his head over praying hands. A young boy wraps the arm we can see across the praying man's hips. Three more men to the left of this group pause as they undress to look toward Jesus. All the men stand or sit among puddles as a river spans the width of the painting behind the group and winds into the distance to our right. At the center of the composition, three men stand or recline on a grassy mound on the far side of the river. Tucked under trees at the peak of the mound, a smudge of white could be another kneeling person. Two more people walk along a path that crests the mound to our left. Mountains in the distance are slate blue beneath a vivid blue sky streaked with white clouds.

Media Options

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Although Nicolas Poussin's work exerted an enormous influence on the development of French seventeenth-century painting, the artist perfected his style in Rome, incorporating the lessons of Renaissance and contemporary Italian painters into his own idiom. Poussin's Baptism of Christ is one of a series of canvases illustrating the Seven Sacraments executed from 1638-1642 for his friend and patron Cassiano dal Pozzo.

In Poussin's composition, the river Jordan winds through the foreground plane where he has placed thirteen figures. Christ is located to the right of the canvas; on his left side -- which represents paradise -- two figures, probably wingless angels, kneel to help him. To his right, on the earthly side of the Jordan, Saint John holds a vessel over Christ's head.

The reactions of the figures to the right of Christ demonstrate why mastery of the human form was essential to history painting. The row of figures behind Saint John have anguished expressions and contorted poses. Poussin has depicted the specific moment when the voice of the Lord proclaimed: "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17). By presenting complex poses and physiognomies, Poussin has evoked a very human reaction -- the fear of those present as they acknowledge Christ as the son of God -- thereby encouraging the viewer to identify with this significant moment.

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 36

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 95.5 x 121 cm (37 5/8 x 47 5/8 in.)
    framed: 123.8 x 149.9 x 14 cm (48 3/4 x 59 x 5 1/2 in.)

  • Accession

    1946.7.14

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Commissioned by Cavaliere Cassiano dal Pozzo [d. 1657], Rome; by inheritance to his brother, Carlo Antonio dal Pozzo [d. 1689], Rome; by inheritance to his son, Gabriele dal Pozzo [d. 1695], Rome; by inheritance to his son, Cosimo Antonio dal Pozzo [died c. 1739], Rome; pledged by Pozzo to Marchese del Bufalo, Rome, as payment for debt [Bufalo offered his set of Poussin's Seven Sacraments to King Louis XV of France in 1729 when Bufalo ran into financial difficulties]; returned to Cosimo Antonio dal Pozzo, Rome, when debt paid, in either February 1730 or February 1732;[1] by inheritance to his daughter, Maria Laura dal Pozzo Boccapaduli; by inheritance to the Boccapaduli family, Rome, who attempted to sell the series to Sir Robert Walpole [d. 1745], but export license was denied by the Pope; sold 1785 for the Boccapaduli family by (James Byres, Rome)[2] to Charles Manners, 4th duke of Rutland [1754-1787], Belvoir Castle, Grantham, Leicestershire; by inheritance to his son, John Henry Manners, 5th duke of Rutland [1778-1857], Belvoir Castle;[3] by inheritance to his son, Charles Cecil John Manners, 6th duke of Rutland [1815-1888], Belvoir Castle; by inheritance to his son, John James Robert Manners, 7th duke of Rutland [1818-1906], Belvoir Castle; by inheritance to his son, Henry John Brinsley Manners, 8th duke of Rutland [1852-1925], Belvoir Castle; by inheritance to his son, John Henry Montagu Manners, 9th duke of Rutland [1886-1940], Belvoir Castle; sold 1939 to (Wildenstein & Co., Inc., Paris, New York, and London); sold December 1944 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[4] gift 1946 to NGA.
[1] The Seven Sacraments series, of which this painting was a part, hung in the main room of Cassiano's 16th century Roman palazzo on the via dei Chiavari, designated the Stanza de' Sagramenti, together with other paintings by Poussin and Jean le Maire. For a hypothetical reconstruction of the room, see Donatella L. Sparti, "Criteri museografici nella collezione dal Pozzo alla luce di documentazione inedita," in Francesco Solinas, ed., Cassiano dal Pozzo: atti del seminario internazionale di studi, Napoli 18-19 dicembre 1987, Rome, 1989: fig. 7; Donatella L. Sparti, Le collezioni dal Pozzo. Storia di una famiglia e del suo museo nella Roma seicentesca, Modena, 1992: figs. 53-57, cited in Elizabeth Cropper and Charles Dempsey, Nicolas Poussin: Friendship and the Love of Painting, Princeton, 1996: 112.
For Cassiano's collection and the Pozzo inventories, see, among others, Marquis de Philippe Chennevières, _Recherches sur la vie et les ouvrages de quelques peintres provinciaux de l'ancienne France_, 4 vols., Paris, 1847-1862, reprint, Geneva, 1973: 3:149-155; Sheila Somers Rinehart, "Poussin et la famille dal Pozzo," in André Chastel, ed., _Actes du colloque international Nicolas Poussin: Paris, 19-21 septembre 1958_, 2 vols., Paris, 1960: 1:19-30 (who lists forty-one Poussin paintings owned by Cassiano in the appendix, cited in Colin Eisler, _Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian_, Oxford, 1977: 273); Francis Haskell and Sheila Somers Rinehart, "The Dal Pozzo Collection: Some New Evidence," _The Burlington Magazine_ 102, 688 (July 1960): 318-327; Arnauld Brejon de Lavergnée, "Tableaux de Poussin et d'autres artistes français dans la collection dal Pozzo: deux inventaires inédits," _Revue de l'Art_ 19 (1973): 76-96; Timothy Standring, "A Lost Poussin Work on Copper: _The Agony in the Garden_," _The Burlington Magazine_ 127, no. 990 (September 1985): 614-617; Timothy Standring, "Some Pictures in the dal Pozzo collection: Three New Inventories," _The Burlington Magazine_ 130 (August 1988): 608-626; Sparti 1989; Donatella L. Sparti, "The dal Pozzo Collection Again: The Inventories of 1689 and 1695 and the Family Archive," _The Burlington Magazine_ 132 (August 1990): 551-570; Sparti 1992, cited in Cropper and Dempsey 1996: 112. For discussion of Cassiano's broader interests and how his collection compared to other Roman collections at the time, see Cropper and Dempsey 1996.

The painting was recorded as being in the Palazzo Doria Pamphili in 1733 and 1739, but it must have still been owned by Pozzo, as it passed to his daughter at his death.

[2] Byres arranged for copies to be substituted for the originals in Rome so that the originals could be smuggled out of Italy. See William T. Whitley, Artists and their Friends in England 1700-1799, 2 vols., London, 1928: 2:75-77.
[3] Lady Victoria Manners, "Notes on the Pictures at Belvoir Castle," Connoisseur 6 (1903): 136, states that the painting "was presented by George IV to the fifth Duke of Rutland as a substitute for the Sacrament of Penance, which is supposed to have been burnt in the disastrous fire of 1816." There is no evidence that George IV ever owned the painting, so this statement must be in error.
[4] During the preparation of the NGA systematic catalogue of its French paintings of the 15th through the 18th centuries, Joseph Baillio of Wildenstein & Co. kindly confirmed the year in which the company purchased the painting from the Duke of Rutland. The "memorandum of agreement" between Wildenstein and the Kress Foundation for the purchase of ten paintings, including this one, is dated 28 December 1944 (copy in NGA curatorial files). See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/2085.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1938

  • 17th Century Art in Europe, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1938, no. 318, repro.

1946

  • Recent Additions to the Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1946, no. 786.

1960

  • Exposition Nicolas Poussin. 2nd ed. (Exh. cat. Musée du Louvre.) Paris, 1960: 94-95.

1962

  • L’ ideale classico del Seicento in Italia e la pittura di paesaggio. (Exh. cat. Palazzo dell’Archiginnasio.) Bologna, 1962: 186-188.

1981

  • Poussin: Sacraments and Bacchanals. Paintings and Drawings on Sacred and Profane Themes by Nicolas Poussin 1594-1665, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1981, no. 37.

1982

  • Rosenberg, Pierre. La peinture française du xvii e siècle dans les collections américaines. (Exh. cat. Galeries nationales du Grand Palais; Metropolitan Museum of Art; and Art Institute of Chicago.) Paris, 1982. English ed., France in the Golden Age: Seventeenth-Century French Paintings in American Collections. New York, 1982: 371, no. 12.

1994

  • Nicolas Poussin, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris; Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1994-1995, no. 69 (Paris) and no. 44 (London), repro.

  • Rosenberg, Pierre, and Louis-Antoine Prat. Nicolas Poussin 1594 – 1665. (Exh. cat. Galeries nationales du Grand Palais.) Paris, 1994: no. 69.

2000

  • L'Idea del Bello. Viaggio per Roma nel Seicento con Giovan Pietro Bellori, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, 2000, no. 37, repro.

Bibliography

1666

  • Félibien, André. Entretiens sur les vies et sur les ouvrages des plus excellens peintres anciens et modernes. 6 vols. 1st ed. Paris, 1666-1688. Reprint Trévoux, 1725: 4:23.

1829

  • Smith, John. _ A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish, and French Painters_. 9 vols. London, 1829 – 1842: 8(1837):no. 135.

1841

  • Eller, Irvin. The History of Belvoir Castle. London, 1841: 291-292.

1903

  • Manners, Lady Victoria. “Notes on the Pictures at Belvoir Castle.” The Connoisseur 6 (1903): 131 – 134.

1911

  • "Correspondance de Nicolas Poussin publiée d’après les originaux." In Archives de l’art français, nouvelle période, edited by Charles Jouanny. Paris, 1911: vol. 5: 22, 29, 45, 53, 55, 57, 58, 60, 64, 66, 68, 69, 70, 74.

1914

  • Friedlaender, Walter. Nicolas Poussin. Die Entwicklung seiner Kunst. Munich, 1914: 76, 117.

  • Grautoff, Otto. Nicolas Poussin: sein Werk und sein Leben. 2 vols. Munich and Leipzig, 1914: 1:172, 2: no. 99.

  • Magne, Emile. Nicolas Poussin: premier peintre du roi, 1594 – 1665. Brussels, 1914: no. 229.

1929

  • Reynolds, Sir Joshua. Letters of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Ed. F. W. Hilles. Cambridge, 1929: 163.

1934

  • Passeri, Giovanni Battista. Vite de’ pittori, scultori ed architetti che hanno lavorato a Roma, morti del 1641 fino al 1673. Rome, 1772. Die Künstlerbiographien von Giovanni Battista Passeri. Ed. Jacob Hess. Leipzig and Vienna, 1934: 327.

1938

  • Borenius, Tancred. “French School at Burlington House.” The Burlington Magazine 72 (Feb. 1938): 54-55.

1939

  • Friedlaender, Walter, and Anthony Blunt, eds. The Drawings of Nicolas Poussin: Catalogue Raisonné Studies of the Warburg Institute. 5 vols. London, 1939 – 1974: 1(1939):75, 76.

1945

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 154, repro.

1946

  • Frankfurter, Alfred M. Supplement to the Kress Collection in the National Gallery. New York, 1946: 55, repro.

1952

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds., Great Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1952: 112, color repro.

  • Löhneysen, Hans Wolfgang von. “Die ikonographischen und geistesgeschichtlichen Voraussetzungen der Sieben Sakramente des Nicolas Poussin.” Zeitschrift für Religions — und Geistesgeschichte 4 (1952): 133-150.

1955

  • Wildenstein, Georges. “Les graveurs de Poussin au XVIIe siecle.” Gazette des Beaux-Arts ser. 6, 46(Sept. – Dec. 1955): 143-144. (Reprint Paris, 1957, as Les graveurs de Poussin au xvii e siècle.)

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 338, repro.

1962

  • Mahon, Denis. “Poussiniana: Afterthoughts Arising from the Exhibition.” Gazette des Beaux-Arts ser. 6, 60 (July – Aug. 1962): 1 – 138. Reprint New York, 1962: 106-109, 114.

1963

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 315, repro.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 105.

1966

  • Friedlaender, Walter. Nicolas Poussin: A New Approach. New York, 1966: 56-57, 62.

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 2:288, color repro.

  • Blunt, Anthony. The Paintings of Nicolas Poussin. A Critical Catalogue. 2 vols. London, 1966: no. 105.

1967

  • Blunt, Anthony. Nicolas Poussin: The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts (1958). 2 vols. New York, 1967. Reprint London, 1995: 115, 159, 188, 244.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 93, repro.

1969

  • Badt, Kurt. Die Kunst des Nicolas Poussin. 2 vols. Cologne, 1969: no. 205.

1973

  • Brejon de Lavergnée, Arnauld. “Tableaux de Poussin et d’autres artistes français dans la collection dal Pozzo: deux inventaires inédits.” Revue de l'Art 19 (1973): 76 – 96.

1974

  • Thuillier, Jacques. L’opera completa di Poussin. Milan, 1974. French ed., Tout l’oeuvre peint de Poussin. Paris, 1974: no. 113.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 274, repro.

  • Jaffé, Michael. “Poussin and Reni.” In Études d’art français offertes à Charles Sterling. Ed. A. Châtelet and N. Reynaud. Paris, 1975: 216.

1976

  • Bellori, Giovanni Pietro. Le vite de’ pittori, scultori, ed architetti moderni. Rome, 1672. Reprint Turin, 1976. Ed. Evelina Borea: 431-433.

1977

  • Eisler, Colin. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian. Oxford, 1977: 271-274, fig. 250.

1979

  • Watson, Ross. The National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1979: 72, pl. 58.

1980

  • Wild, Doris. Nicolas Poussin. 2 vols. Zürich, 1980: 2: no. 105.

1981

  • Brigstocke, Hugh. “Nicolas Poussin and Cassiano dal Pozzo: A Study of the Seven Holy Sacraments.” Apollo 114 (1981): 373-376.

1983

  • Bell, Janis. “Color and Theory in Seicento Art: Zaccolini’s ‘Prospettiva del colore’ and the Heritage of Leonardo.” 2 vols. PhD diss., Brown University, 1983: 131-133.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 317, no. 417, color repro.

  • Goldfarb, Hilliard T. “A Highly Important Poussin Acquisition and Chantelou’s Seven Sacrament Series.” Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art (Oct. 1984): 292.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 318, repro.

  • Wright, Christopher. Poussin Paintings. A Catalogue Raisonné. London, 1985: no. 111.

  • Ford, Brinsley. "Pictures lost to the Nation." NACF Magazine 29 (Christmas 1985): 20.

1990

  • Mérot, Alain. Nicolas Poussin. New York, 1990: no. 108.

1992

  • National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 163, repro.

1993

  • Carrier, David. Poussin’s Paintings: A Study in Art-Historical Methodology. University Park, Pa., 1993: 191, 197, 199, 252.

  • Bell, Janis. “Zaccolini’s Theory of Color Perspective.” The Art Bulletin 75 (March 1993): 95.

1994

  • Rosenberg, Pierre, and Antoine Prat. Nicolas Poussin, 1594 – 1665: catalogue raisonné des dessins. 2 vols. Milan, 1994: 1: nos. 109, 110.

  • Thuillier, Jacques. Nicolas Poussin. Paris, 1994: no. 130.

1996

  • Sénéchal, Philippe. “Fortune de quelques antiques Farnese aupres des peintres a Rome au début du XVIIe siecle.” In Poussin et Rome. Actes du colloque à l’Académie de France à Rome et à la Bibliotheca Hertziana. Ed. Oliver Bonfait. Paris and Rome, 1996: 38-39.

  • Cropper, Elizabeth, and Charles Dempsey. Nicolas Poussin: Friendship and the Love of Painting. Princeton, 1996: 109-144.

2000

  • Green, Tony. Nicolas Poussin Paints the Seven Sacraments Twice. England, 2000: 78-93.

  • Bernstock, Judith. Poussin and French Dynastic Ideology. New York, 2000: 249-277.

2004

  • Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 178-179, no. 140, color repro.

2005

  • Baillio, Joseph, et al. The Arts of France from François Ier to Napoléon Ier. A Centennial Celebration of Wildenstein's Presence in New York. Exh. cat. Wildenstein & Co., Inc., New York, 2005: 52, fig. 15, 71(not in the exhibition).

2009

  • Conisbee, Philip, et al. French Paintings of the Fifteenth through the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, 2009: no. 83, 379-388, color repro.

2011

  • Vogel, Carol. "Inside Art: A Christie's Loss Is the Kimbell's Gain." New York Times 160, no. 55,523 (September 9, 2011): C23.

2012

  • Kimbell Art Museum. "Recent Acquisition: The Sacrament of Ordination by Nicholas Poussin." Calendar, February through August 2012: 17, color repro.

2013

  • Unglaub, Jonathan W. Poussin's Sacrament of Ordination: History, Faith, and the Sacred Landscape. Fort Worth, 2013: 21, color fig. 17.

2022

  • Burnett, Craig. "Stripped back -- how a figure freed up Poussin's painting." Apollo (26 September 22): repro.

Inscriptions

On stretcher: "11791F" on top stretcher bar; "530" on center stretcher bar.

Wikidata ID

Q20177193

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