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97. NICOLAS POUSSIN
French School, 1594-1665

HOLY FAMILY ON THE STEPS

Since this is the only painting by Poussin showing the Holy Family and St. Elizabeth with the little St. John grouped on a flight of steps, one is justified in identifying it with a Madonna Seated on the Steps painted in 1648 for Nicolas Hannequin, Baron d'Equevilly, Sieur de Fresne. Several preparatory drawings for this composition have been recognized by W. Friedlaender (1939): in the Louvre, Paris; the Uffizi, Florence; the Musée Bonnat, Bayonne; the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York. Our painting was engraved by Claudia Stella and J. G. de Poilly (1669-1728). The latter engraving is reproduced in Otto Grautoff's book (1914). An old copy, formerly in the Lerolle Collection, Paris, is reproduced by W. Friedlaender (1914). John Smith (1837) and Waagen (1854) list the painting.

The Raphaelesque character of Poussin's composition and of some of the figures is evident here; see especially the Madonnas of Raphael's Rome period, the sibyls in S. Maria della Pace, etc. In the attitudes of Mother and Child, one can see a close relationship to Raphael's Madonna del Pesce (Prado), and to his allegorical figure of Philosophy on the ceiling of the Stanza della Segnatura. Poussin painted a few other Madonnas soon after 1648 which show the same tendency towards classic grandeur which characterizes our painting.

Canvas: Height 27 1/8 in.; Width 38 3/8 in. (68.9 x 97.5 cm.)

The first owner in 1648 was Hannequin de Fresne (see E. Bonnaffé 1884). Andre Felibien saw the Madonna Seated on the Steps between 1666 and 1688 in the Hotel de Guise where Roger de Gaignières, steward of Marie de Lorraine, duchesse de Guise et de Joyeuse, had installed his magnificent collection. A sale was held in 1685. Later on, in the third quarter of the 18th century, our painting was owned by the Abbé Le Blanc who was considered one of the finest connoisseurs of his time (L. Clément de Ris, 1877); sale Feb. 14, 1781. Paintings by Poussin called A Rest on the Flight into Egypt, or simply Holy Family, are listed in the auction sales of the following decades (see G. Duplessis 1874, and H. Mireur, 1912) but it has not been possible to identify them definitively with our Madonna (see T. Bertin Mourot, 1948). Between 1833 and 1844 our painting entered the collection of the Duke of Sutherland, Stafford House, where G. F. Waagen (1854 II, 66) admired it. Samuel H. Kress Collection, New York, 1949. Exhibited in the Royal Academy, Burlington House, 1938, Seventeenth Century Art in Europe, and at Wildenstein's, French Painting of the Seventeenth Century, London, 1947.

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