Saint John Baptizing in the River Jordan

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.

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.

1641–1665

Post: Premier peintre du Roi

autumn 1642

Finds a pretext and leaves for Rome for good

Increasingly unhappy with court intrigue and the weight of commissions, in the autumn of 1642, while the king and court were in Languedoc, Poussin found a pretext to leave Paris and returned to Rome permanently.

1642–1644

Richelieu, Louis XIII and Urban VIII pass away

Richelieu died in 1642, Louis XIII in 1643 and Pope Urban VIII in 1644; his successor Innocent X was less interested in art patronage and preferred Spanish culture, and the Barberini left for France. But Richelieu’s successor, Cardinal Mazarin, began to collect Poussin’s works.