La Manne

1630s

Cassiano dal Pozzo — his chief patron

Poussin’s flowering coincided with his complete abandonment of church commissions: he gathered a circle of patrons around him but strove for independence, accepting commissions from connoisseurs without binding himself to any of them permanently. The most important was Cassiano dal Pozzo; in the surviving correspondence the relationship comes close to servitude, although the painter did not live in his house.

1630s

Brother-in-law Gaspard Dughet — his first pupil

After the wedding Poussin went on living in the house on the Via Paolina; with him lived Anne-Marie’s brother Gaspard Dughet, the future well-known landscape painter, and from 1636 his younger brother Jean. Poussin became Gaspard’s first teacher, and Gaspard later took his surname; the marriage seems to have been a happy one, but childless.

December 1640

December 1640: Poussin returns to Paris

François Sublet de Noyers, Superintendent of the King’s Buildings, whose invitations Poussin had declined, sent his cousins Roland and Paul Fréart to Rome, offering the title of First Painter to the King and a substantial residence at the Tuileries. Poussin yielded, and in December 1640 he was back in Paris.

1641

An avalanche of royal commissions

In Paris he was swamped with commissions: “The Institution of the Eucharist” for the chapel of the château of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, “The Miracle of St Francis Xavier” for the Jesuit novitiate, ceilings and vaults for the Grande Galerie of the Louvre, an allegory for Richelieu’s study, designs for tapestries and title pages for the royal printing house. For a man accustomed to working slowly and carefully it was too much.

1641–1642

Vouet’s partisans reproach his Christ with resembling Jupiter

The partisans of Simon Vouet, Poussin’s old friend, also criticised his Christ in the sky in “The Miracle of St Francis Xavier”: too much pride, resembling Jupiter more than a God of Mercy. Poussin answered that he could not and should not imagine a Christ looking like a gentle father — when he was on earth among men, it was difficult to look him in the face.

1641–1665

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