(Les Andelys 1594–1665 Rome)
A satyr carrying a nymph on his back, with putti and a faun in an arcadian landscape,
oil on canvas, 101 x 76.5 cm, framed

Inscribed on the stretcher, possibly by the 2nd Earl of Eldon:
Silvans and Satyr: This picture belonged to the late Lord Chancellor Eldon. It represents Silvans and a Satyr, accompanied by Genii returning homewards. It appears to have been painted by Nicolas Poussin. Eldon 1840.
Incribed 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 the 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 the 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 omitted from the later Kassel version.

The carnal and highly eroticised nature of Poussin’s output in this period is attributed by Standring to his relationship with the distinguished poet Giambattista Marino (1569-1625), first in Paris where the pair resided together, and then in Rome where Marino introduced the young painter to his sophisticated circle. Wright has observed that it has long been known that in his early years in Rome from the middle 1620s onwards Poussin adopted a free Baroque style quite different from the static grandeur of his mature works. The present motif, of a nymph riding on the back of a satyr, would have excited the artists’ clientele by challenging them to identify it from number of examples in antiquity. These might range from Cybele and the Satyr Marsyas to a depiction of l’amour vulgare. Poussin’s patrons included the antiquarian Cassiano del Pozzo (1588-1657), secretary to Cardinal Francesco Barberini. Standring suggests that the present composition likely depicts Satyrs playing Ephedrismos and relates it to a 1st Century AD intaglio ring in the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

The current canvas sits within a large group of similar works inspired by both Titian’s and Marino’s ekphrases of Ovid’s works. Wright notes that not only did Poussin work with an astonishing facility, rapid brushwork and sometimes vibrant colour but that he liked to repeat his themes. Poussin’s contemporaneous works Midas at the Source of the Pactolus and Nymph and Satyr also exist in two versions, and as may be perceived in the handling of the present work, are described by Standring as having been ‘painted rapidly with diluted pigments and handling akin to abbozzato’ (see op. cit. Standring, 2009, p. 86). Standring adds that Poussin’s practice appears to have been to ‘sketch out the essential components of a composition that he kept in his studio’. Characterising further Poussin’s early Roman practice, the British Museum’s aforementioned drawing relating to the present composition is also noteworthy for Poussin’s unusual choice of red chalk. This further illustrates Poussin’s adoption of Roman artistic tendencies, as exemplified by painters such as Raphael and Giulio Romano who were revered for their sensual figure studies.

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).

Not only does the composition in the engraving correspond to the present picture, as opposed to the Kassel version, but the size of the picture is recorded with dimensions which appear to match the present work. Given that the Kassel version’s provenance is recorded by the Gemäldegalerie, Alte Meister only as far back as 1749, the present painting may be the work recorded as ‘No 168. Een Saterken dragende een Vrouken van Poussijn, 150 florins’ in the collection of Joan Baptista Anthoine, which was inventoried in 1691 by the painters Jan Erasmus Quellinus and Pieter van der Willighen. The illustrious Anthoine collection also included Peter Paul Rubens’s Massacre of the Innnocents, now conserved in the Thomson Collection, Art Gallery of Ontario (see D. Jaffé, Rubens’s Massacre of the Innocents, London 2009 p. 145).

Although not all Poussin scholars have confirmed the attribution of the present picture, Wright notes that even Anthony Blunt in his catalogue of 1966–67 avoided early paintings, such as this work. However, some modern scholars have gradually filled in the gaps for these years. Wright stresses the significance of these early works, such as the present canvas, to understanding Poussin’s artistic development. The present picture exudes a light hearted mood which does not anticipate the artist’s later gravity, and indicates that had Poussin died young he would be celebrated as a Baroque painter and not a Classical one.