The Met Acquires Painting by Poussin on Copper
Nicolas Poussin, The Agony in the Garden, 1626–27, oil on copper, 61 × 49 cm (New York: The Met, Gift of Jon and Barbara Landau, in honor of Keith Christiansen, 2021.378).
As reported by Art News (20 January 2022), The Met has recently acquired an exceptional work by Poussin on copper: Agony in the Garden (1626–27), from the collection of Barbara and Jon Landau, one of only two settled works on copper by the painter. As David Pullins notes in his catalogue entry for the piece, this is early Poussin when the artist was still working out his place within line-and-color debates, guided here particularly by the Venetian legacies of Titian and Tintoretto. The painting caught the attention of some of the most artistically attuned visitors to Rome in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, including the Swedish diplomat count Nicodemus Tessin; the secretary to Rome’s Accademia di San Luca, Giuseppe Ghezzi; and the director of the Académie de France à Rome, Nicolas Vleughels. The eighteenth- and nineteenth-century provenance is also interesting as the painting moved from Rome to Paris, and then on to London through the American artist John Trumbull (it was part of the Trumbull sale at Christie’s in 1797). That said, the work was—as noted in the press release—rediscovered only in 1985, when it was “heralded as a major addition to Poussin’s corpus.” –CH
Exhibition | À la mode
Installation view of the exhibition À la mode: L’art de paraître au 18e siècle at the Musée d’arts de Nantes.
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Now on view at the Musée d’arts de Nantes; see particularly the ‘Exhibition in Pictures’:
À la mode: L’art de paraître au 18e siècle
À la mode: The Art of Appearance in the 18th Century
Musée d’arts de Nantes, 26 November 2021 — 6 March 2022
Musée des Beaux-arts de Dijon, 13 May — 22 August 2022
Curated by Sophie Lévy
The exhibition À la mode: The Art of Appearance in the 18th Century juxtaposes iconic textile and pictorial items to reveal the reciprocal influences at play between the world of art and the birth of fashion in the 18th century. The exhibition brings together over 200 objects dating from the 18th century from major textile and fine art museums. Iconic paintings are displayed alongside precious textiles, never previously seen drawings, garments, and accessories, some of which have been restored especially for the exhibition.
The exhibition is a special collaboration with the Palais Galliera, musée de la Mode de la Ville de Paris, Paris Musées, and co-produced with the Musée des Beaux-arts de Dijon, which will host the exhibition from 13 May to 22 August 2022.
Chief Curator
• Sophie Lévy, Director and Curator of the Musée d’arts de Nantes
Scientific Curators
• Adeline Collange-Perugi, Curator of early art collections, Musée d’arts de Nantes
• Pascale Gorguet Ballesteros, Chief curator, 18th-Century Fashion and Dolls Department, Palais Galliera, musée de la Mode de la Ville de Paris
• Sandrine Champion-Balan, Chief curator, Collections Development Centre manager, Collections manager, head of modern collections for the curatorial team of the exhibition at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon
À la mode: L’art de paraître au 18e siècle (Ghent: Éditions Snoeck, 2021), 327 pages, ISBN: 978-9461617101, €35.
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