A Bacchanalian Revel Before a Term

1620s

The Cavaliere Marino takes the painter under his wing

Poussin’s work caught the attention of the Italian poet Cavaliere Marino, then living in France; his patronage let the thirty-year-old painter work in peace. According to Bellori the poet took him into his house and helped him with the invention of subjects and the rendering of emotion, and in Marino’s house Poussin gained access to a library with treatises by Alberti and Dürer and manuscripts and drawings by Leonardo.

c. 1629

A grave illness: the Dughet family nurses Poussin

Around 1629 Poussin fell gravely ill and was nursed by the family of the French pastry-cook Dughet; on recovering he became engaged to the eldest daughter, Anne-Marie. The wedding in the church of San Lorenzo in Lucina took place on 1 September 1630.

1630

Gives up monumental commissions

In 1630 the commission headed by Domenichino and d’Arpino gave the decoration of the Chapel of the Immaculate Conception in San Luigi dei Francesi to the Lorrainer Charles Mellin, not to Poussin. After that he firmly renounced the monumental genre and turned to “cabinet painting” for private patrons.

9 augustus 1630

Married: Anne-Marie Dughet

1632

Elected to the Academy of St Luke

In 1632 Poussin was elected a member of the Academy of St Luke — two years after he had given up monumental commissions for cabinet painting.

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.