Master I.S. – The Enigmatic Contemporary of Rembrandt @ Serlachius Museum, Mänttä

Master I.S. – The Enigmatic Contemporary of Rembrandt

Serlachius Museum, Mänttä 

Through 17 August 2025

Master I.S.

Portrait of an Old Woman, 1651

Oil on panel, 41 x 33 cm

Kunsthistorisches Museum Wienna

Photo: © KHMMuseumsverband

Master I.S.

Young Scholar Half-naked, 1638

Oil on panel, 54 x 40 cm 

Private collection 

Photo: David Bassenge

Master I.S.

Old Woman Reading a Letter, 1658

Oil on panel, 50 x 35 cm 

Nationalmuseum Stockholm

Photo: Nationalmuseum, Anna Danielsson

Who was the mysterious artist who signed their works in the 17th century with the monogram I.S.? The research project and exion, hibition by Serlachius and the Dutch Museum De Lakenhal present, for the first time, the works of this contemporary of Rembrandt. 

The artist who signed their works with the monogram I.S. is believed to have resided in the city of Leiden in the Netherlands during the 1620s and 1630s. Their works show significant influences from renowned Dutch artists Jan Lievens and Rembrandt, who lived and worked in the city c. 1625–1630/31.

Jan Lievens 

Old Man, c. 1625/1626 

Oil on panel, 53,5 x 47,2 cm

Kunsthistorisches Museum Wienna 

Photo: © KHMMuseumsverband

Gerrit Dou

Self-portrait of the Painter in His Studio, c. 1632 

Oil on panel, 60,5 x 44 cm 

Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden, 

Purchased with the support of the 

Vereniging van Belangstellenden in Museum De Lakenhal, 

support from the Vereniging Rembrandt 

and a private donation 

Photo: Museum De Lakenhal

The new research project has explored the artist’s works and identity more extensively than ever before. The research began with the Serlachius Seminar held in spring 2022, the topics of which included the Fine Arts Foundation’s old European art.

With the international research project, c. 25 paintings have been identified that are known or believed to be created by Master I.S. Some of the works have disappeared and are known only from black-and-white photographs. The exhibition is the first in which a significant part of the artist’s work has been gathered in one place. After Serlachius, the exhibition will continue in October at Museum De Lakenhal in Leiden.

The Serlachius exhibition includes eighteen paintings from various collections across Europe and from Canada. Fourteen of these are attributed to Master I.S. Additionally, the exhibition features four other paintings that provide a basis for comparison of the works. These works are by Jan Lievens, Gerrit Dou, and David Bailly.

The exhibition is curated by Tomi Moisio, Curator at Serlachius Museums. The Leiden exhibition is curated by Janneke van Asperen, Curator of Old Masters at Museum De Lakenhal.

Master I.S. 

Old Man with a Fur Hat, 1640s 

Oil on canvas, 42 x 35,5 cm 

Gösta Serlachius Fine Arts Foundation. 

Photo: The Finnish National Gallery, Yehia Eweis

Master I.S.

Old Woman in Three-Quarter Profile, 1640–1645 

Oil on panel, 47 x 38 cm

Private collection 

Photo: Eva Steentjes

The artist’s identity remains a mystery

The Serlachius collection includes a work purchased from London in 1937, Old Man in a Fur Hat (1640s), previously attributed to Jan Lievens (1607–1674). The research project has strengthened the notion that the creator might be Master I.S.

The artist often depicts elderly people in great detail and without embellishment. The models are characterised by a melancholic, sideways gaze. Their works feature costumes, details, and interiors that suggest Eastern European or Scandinavian origins.

“Perhaps they are from that region and came to study in Leiden, for example. Alternatively, they may have travelled in Eastern or Northern Europe”, says Tomi Moisio.

So far, the identity of the artist who signed their works with the pseudonym I.S. has not been discovered. Research continues, and the interest of international art historians has brought new information about their works. At the same time, their value has increased.

The exhibition is accompanied by a publication in which experts in the field explore the mystery of Master I.S. and make comparative research on artist-contemporaries. The articles in the book have been written by curators Tomi Moisio and Janneke van Asperen, as well as the distinguished specialists on old Dutch and Flemish art, professors Volker Manuth and Marieke de Winkel. 

The research group has also included David de Witt, the Chief Curator at Rembrandthuis in Amsterdam. The book is published in English, as it is expected to be of great interest to the international academic community.

SERLACHIUS MUSEUM

Serlachius Manor, Joenniementie 47, Mäntä

serlachius.fi

Master I.S. – The Enigmatic Contemporary of Rembrandt

Serlachius Museum, Mänttä, Finland, 12 April - 17 August 2025

Michelangelo & Men - Exhibition @ Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Michelangelo & Men

Teylers Museum, Haarlem

15 October 2025 - 25 January 2026

Michelangelo Buonarotti (1475-1564) 

Study for an ignudo in the Sistine Chapel, c. 1511

Collection Teylers Museum

Image courtesy Teylers Museum

Five hundred and fifty years after his birth, Teylers Museum is paying homage to one of the most celebrated artists in history. The exhibition Michelangelo & Men zooms in on the glorious leading role the male body played in both the life and art of Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564). An international first: never before has an exhibition been entirely dedicated to this theme. Michelangelo & Men sheds new light on Michelangelo’s thoughts and actions, while also drawing parallels to the present day.

Michelangelo: Naked and muscular

Michelangelo was fascinated by the male body. Featuring in nearly all his artworks, he often portrayed it naked, muscular, and in provocative and expressive poses. The most important piazza in Florence formed the backdrop for Michelangelo’s five-metre-tall marble statue of a nude man: David. And in the Sistine Chapel in Rome — right in the heart of the Vatican, the centre of the Roman-Catholic church — he painted a ceiling teeming with male nudes. Both David and The Creation of Adam are artworks that are so deeply embedded in our collective memory that we often take them for granted. In Michelangelo's own time, however, these works were revolutionary, and over the course of history they were frequently considered controversial.

Michelangelo: Multiple perspectives

Michelangelo & Men examines the male body in Michelangelo’s work and life from all angles: from the outside influences of his predecessors and classical antiquity, to his own extensive anatomic knowledge and use of male models. Also highlighted is the theoretical and religious significance of the male body to Michelangelo, as well as his presumed personal predilection for me. In the exhibition a number of contemporary voices furthermore reflect on how Michelangelo represented the male figure: from queer to Roman Catholic, and from feminist to fitfluencer. In this way the exhibition also addresses timeless themes like gender, sexuality, and beauty ideals.

Michelangelo: Drawings, sculptures, and letters

In 1790, the then recently opened Teylers Museum acquired a large collection of Italian drawings in Rome, including 22 drawings by Michelangelo. Counted among the most beautiful drawings he ever made, these works form the backbone of the exhibition. This world-class collection belonging to the oldest museum in the Netherlands is supplemented with over twenty international loans.As well as drawings, these also include sculptures, a letter, and a fragment from a poem written by Michelangelo. Also shown are a book and a number of drawings and prints by friends, students, and followers of the artist. The works were loaned from organizations like The Royal Collection at Windsor Castle, The British Museum in London, the Uffizi in Florence, and the Louvre in Paris. Art-historical highlights that have never been shown in the Netherlands before will be brought to Haarlem, including The Dream from The Courtauld Gallery in London, and Study for the Libyan Sibyl from The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. As drawings are vulnerable to light they are rarely exhibited. Seeing all these phenomenal artworks by Michelangelo together —in the Netherlands — is therefore a once in a lifetime opportunity.

TEYLERS MUSEUM

Spaarne 16, 2011 CH Haarlem

teylersmuseum.nl

Millet: Life on the Land @ National Gallery, London

Millet: Life on the Land

National Gallery, London

7 August – 19 October 2025

The first UK exhibition in nearly 50 years dedicated to Jean-François Millet (1814–1875) will open at the National Gallery in autumn 2025. 

The show will coincide with the 150th anniversary of Millet’s death – by which time his works were well known in the UK and beginning to be eagerly collected by an enthusiastic group of British collectors, resulting in a significant body of his work in UK public collections.

Millet: Life on the Land will present around 13 paintings and drawings from British public collections. It will include the National Gallery’s The Winnower (about 1847‒8), and the exceptional loan of 'L’Angelus' (1857‒9) from the Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

The exhibition will range from Millet’s last years in Paris through to his images of workers on the land during the 1850s following his move to the village of Barbizon in the Fontainebleau Forest in 1849, when he became one of the most significant painters associated with the 19th-century Barbizon school. Two drawings of shepherdesses from the Cooper Gallery (Barnsley) and the Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambridge) will be shown together for the first time.

'The Winnower', which was acquired by the National Gallery in 1978, is one of Millet’s first paintings to treat the theme of rural labour. It was exhibited at the Salon of 1848 and was well received. However, later works exhibited at the Paris Salon produced extreme reaction. While Millet’s own political convictions are unclear, many critics appropriated his work for their own progressive agenda while others labelled him as subversive. Yet there is no doubt that he had sympathy with the workers around him and wrote in 1851 of the ‘human side’ that touched him most. 

In 'L’Angelus', a man and a woman are reciting the Angelus, a prayer which commemorates the annunciation made to Mary by the angel Gabriel. It is traditionally cited at morning, noon and evening, when it marks the end of the working day.  Never collected by its original commissioner, it followed an extraordinary journey through several collections and sales. The two quiet figures silhouetted against land and sky, the profound sense of meditation underscored by a beauty of light have turned it into a world-famous icon in the 20th century. 

Sarah Herring, Associate Curator of Post 1800 Paintings, says ‘Millet endowed rural labourers with dignity and nobility, depicting them in drawings and paintings with empathy and compassion.’ 

Nadar (French, Paris 1820-1910 Paris)

Jean-Francois Millet, 1856-58

Salted paper print from paper negative; Mount: 

15 7/8 in. — 11 5/8 in. (40.4 — 29.5 cm) 

Image: 10 9/16 — 8 3/8 in. (26.8 — 21.3 cm)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 

Bequest of Maurice B. Sendak, 2012 (2013.159.46)

www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/306329 

Jean-François Millet (1814–1875)

Jean-François Millet was born at Grouchy (Manche) and was a pupil of Paul Delaroche in Paris by 1837. For some years he painted chiefly idylls in imitation of 18th-century French painters. Becoming, like Honoré Daumier, increasingly moved by the spectacle of social injustice, Millet turned to peasant subjects and won his first popular success at the Salon of 1848 with The Winnower. From the following year he was chiefly active at Barbizon and associated with the Barbizon school of landscape painters.

His work was influenced by Dutch paintings of the 17th century and by the work of Jean-Siméon Chardin and was influential in Holland on Jozef Israëls and on the early style of Vincent Van Gogh.

Barbizon school

The Barbizon school of painters were part of an art movement toward Realism in art, which arose in the context of the dominant Romantic Movement of the time. The Barbizon school was active roughly from 1830 through 1870. It takes its name from the village of Barbizon, France, on the edge of the Forest of Fontainebleau, where many of the artists gathered. Most of their works were landscape painting, but several of them also painted landscapes with farm workers, and genre scenes of village life. Some of the most prominent features of this school are its tonal qualities, colour, loose brushwork, and softness of form.

The leaders of the Barbizon school were: Théodore Rousseau, Charles-François Daubigny, Jules Dupré, Constant Troyon, Charles Jacque, and Narcisse Virgilio Díaz. Jean-François Millet lived in Barbizon from 1849, but his interest in figures with a landscape backdrop sets him rather apart from the others.

NATIONAL GALLERY, LONDON

www.nationalgallery.org.uk

Adriaen van de Velde @ Dulwich Picture Gallery, London

Adriaen van de Velde: Dutch Master of Landscape
Dulwich Picture Gallery, London
12 October 2016 – 15 January 2017

Adriaen van de Velde

Panoramic summer landscape with a horseman and a post wagon, 1661

Oil on panel

Private Collection

In collaboration with the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Dulwich Picture Gallery will host the first-ever exhibition devoted to the painter and draughtsman ADRIAEN VAN DE VELDE (1636 - 1672), one of the finest landscape artists of the Dutch Golden Age.

Over a career of less than two decades Van de Velde produced a varied body of paintings and drawings that earned him tremendous posthumous fame in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when he was one of the most sought-after names among collectors in Germany, France and England.

Van de Velde was born in Amsterdam, the son and brother respectively of the marine painters Willem van de Velde the Elder and Willem van de Velde the Younger. Adriaen van de Velde, however, pursued an independent career as a landscape painter to focus on tranquil landscapes that depict both typically Dutch and Italianising views populated by figures in peaceful harmony with animals and the surrounding landscape.

Adriaen van de Velde: Dutch Master of Landscape will bring together 60 of his most accomplished works, including landscapes and beachscapes as well as an extraordinary selection of exquisite preparatory studies, many of them in red chalk. Displayed alongside the artist’s paintings, these studies offer a rare glimpse of a seventeenth-century landscape painter at work, from conception to completion. The show will also include pen-and-ink drawings and watercolours that stand alone as works of art in their own right, revealing the extent of the young artist’s talent.

Bart Cornelis, curator of the exhibition, commented:

This exhibition provides an opportunity for the public to get to know the work of one of those exceptionally gifted and refined artists of the Dutch Golden Age who has more recently slipped through the net of history but who deserves to be rediscovered as the great painter and draughtsman that he is. What’s more, his drawings provide a fascinating opportunity to see a seventeenth-century Dutch artist at work: we can, as it were, look over his shoulder to see how he composed his landscapes.

The exhibition opens with Van de Velde’s most accomplished paintings, made when the artist was still in his early twenties. Blissful scenes such as the masterly Beach at Scheveningen, 1658 (Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Kassel)introduce Van de Velde’s highly individual style, in which everything stands out in the pure light of a summer’s day. Especially in his later work Van de Velde succeeded in incorporating the sun-drenched atmosphere of Italianate painters such as Karel Dujardin in his works, but brought a refinement to his subjects that was rarely matched by his contemporaries. Van de Velde probably never travelled outside Holland; the mountainous scenery and Italianate character of some of his landscapes and drawn studies sprung from the imagination and were inspired by the work of fellow artists. Examples include the Pastoral scene from the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, and the preparatory composition drawing for this painting from the Morgan Library & Museum, New York.

There are few artists whose working procedures can be illustrated as well as in the case of Van de Velde, making it possible to follow precisely the various phases of his creative process. For the first time Van de Velde’s famous painting of The Hut (Rijksmuseum) will be displayed alongside the drawn studies that the artist made in preparation for the painting, providing insight into the work’s genesis.Such studies include Seated woman with basket and Resting cow with three sheep (both Amsterdam Museum), as well as a drawing from a private collection depicting the hut that lends the picture its name. These and other studies in the exhibition reveal Van de Velde’s almost obsessive attention to detail and how he proceeded from a rough composition sketch in pen and ink to separate studies of animals and figures from life, often executed in the medium of red chalk.

Few seventeenth-century Dutch landscapists devoted so much time and energy to sketching from models in the studio and the exhibition will showcase some of the artist’s remarkable figure studies, including a sheet with Two Studies of a Reclining Shepherd (Rijksmuseum), which in its elegance and exquisite use of red chalk prefigures the work of eighteenth-century French artists such as Antoine Watteau and François Boucher.

Van de Velde excelled in the depiction of the human figure and their integration into a landscape and was frequently asked to paint the staffage in the landscapes of his contemporaries; his figures can be found in works by artists such as Jacob van Ruisdael and Meindert Hobbema, and, for example, in Dulwich Picture Gallery’s Two Churches and a Town Wall (1660s) by Jan van der Heyden, which will feature in the exhibition.

The exhibition includes a selection of the artist’s cabinet-sized works and concludes with his larger paintings. Together they illustrate the enormous variety of subject-matter in Van de Velde’s oeuvre, from panoramic views to hunting scenes, pastoral subjects or depictions of winter. The larger works include the monumental Portrait of a Family in a Landscape (Rijksmuseum) and the idyllic Landscape with cattle and figures (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge). Together these works show a Dutch Arcadia as it was imagined by this exceptionally refined artist.

Adriaen van de Velde: Dutch Master of Landscape is curated by Bart Cornelis, former Deputy Editor of The Burlington Magazine, London, in collaboration with Marijn Schapelhouman, Senior Curator of Drawings at the Rijksmuseum.

The exhibition includes works from over 20 lending institutions and private collections, including the Royal Collection, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden, The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, Musée du Louvre, Paris, and The National Gallery, London.

The exhibition is part of Dulwich Picture Gallery’s Rediscovering Old Masters: The Melosi Series. This exhibition is supported by a grant from the American Friends of Dulwich Picture Gallery Inc., made possible through the generosity of The Arthur and Holly Magill Foundation.

Adriaen van de Velde: Dutch Master of Landscape has been organised by Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, and the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

DULWICH PICTURE GALLERY

Gallery Road, London, SE21 7AD

www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk

Sebastiano del Piombo: Acquisition by the Art Institute of Chicago

The Art Institute of Chicago acquires newly discovered High Renaissance Painting, Christ Carrying the Cross, by Italian master Sebastiano del Piombo

SEBASTIANO DEL PIOMBO

Christ Carrying the Cross, 1515/1517.

The Art Institute of Chicago.

Lacy Armour, Ada Turnbull Hertle, Mary Swissler Oldberg Acquisition, Charles H. and Mary F. Worcester Collection funds; Wirt D. Walker Trust; Alyce and Edwin DeCosta and the Walter E. Heller Foundation Fund; Estate of Walter Aitken; Frederick W. Renshaw Acquisition, Marian and Samuel Klasstorner funds; Edward E. Ayer Fund in Memory of Charles L. Hutchinson; Lara T. Magnuson Acquisition, Director's funds; Samuel A. Marx Purchase Fund for Major Acquisitions; Edward Johnson, Maurice D. Galleher Endowment, Simeon B. Williams, Capital Campaign General Acquisitions, Wentworth Greene Field Memorial, Samuel P. Avery, Morris L. Parker, Irving and June Seaman Endowment, and Betty Bell Spooner funds.

The Art Institute of Chicago announces the exciting acquisition of SEBASTIANO DEL PIOMBO’s Christ Carrying the Cross (1515/1517) to strengthen its focused collection of Italian High Renaissance painting. The first major discovery of a work by Sebastiano in recent years, it was brought to light by Colnaghi, the renowned London-based art gallery, who facilitated its transition to the museum’s world-class collection. It represents one of the most popular compositions by one of the most distinguished painters working in Rome in the first half of the 16th century. Celebrated by the founding voice of art history, Giorgio Vasari, and given major commissions by Pope Clement VII, Sebastiano was hailed both in his time and beyond as a master of inventive painting who reimagined the monumentality and power of Michelangelo’s style, and the grace and balance of Raphael’s.

“We couldn’t be more thrilled to have this rare and wonderful opportunity to bring such an important painting—our first by Sebastiano—into the Art Institute’s permanent collection,” shared Gloria Groom, Chair of European Painting and Sculpture and David and Mary Winton Green Curator. “This acquisition affirms that through the extraordinary support of our generous donors, we can take our reputation for excellence in collecting to the next level, and tell a more creative and complete story in the galleries that feels exciting and relevant to our thousands of visitors to the museum each day.”

Jorge Coll, CEO of Colnaghi offered, “It was very exciting to have discovered this lost work by such an important Renaissance master, and it is extremely satisfying to know that it now belongs in one of the most important and visited museums in the world. It is of the utmost importance for Nicolas (Cortés) and me as the new partners in Colnaghi that we continue the company’s long and storied tradition of placing important works of art in the world’s greatest museums. This painting was the subject of the first of our new series of publications called ‘Colnaghi Studies’ – catalogues written by leading scholars in order to shed light on lesser known artists and unknown works of art – and we hope that there will be many more works from the ‘Studies’ series that find such prestigious homes in the future.”

Sebastiano developed the innovative composition for Christ Carrying the Cross to heighten the emotional charge of the image. The painting’s dramatic visual impact comes through in the monumental figures and their poignant expressions, the powerful diagonals of the cross, the dynamic and sculptural effect of Christ’s drapery, and the luminous landscape background. The popularity of the composition led Sebastiano to paint several versions and variations of the subject—the Art Institute joins the Museo del Prado, Madrid; Hermitage, Saint Petersburg; and the Szépmüvészeti Museum, Budapest in sharing Sebastiano’s iconic invention with audiences from all over the world.

The painting, now on view in Gallery 205 within the Art Institute’s world-class collection of European Painting and Sculpture, offers visitors a new and exciting opportunity to understand a richer and more inclusive story of Renaissance art and is poised to educate and inspire our visitors for generations to come.

The Art Institute of Chicago
www.artic.edu

Ordination by Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) for sale at Christie's London

On 7 December 2010 in London, Christie’s will offer a masterpiece from one of the most celebrated groups of paintings in European history. Ordination by Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) will highlight the Old Masters and 19th Century Art Evening Sale where it will be presented for sale for the first time in over 225 years by the Trustees of the Belvoir Estate. It is expected to realise £15 million to £20 million.

Richard Knight, International Co-Head of Old Masters and 19th Century Art at Christie's, said: “We are honoured to have been entrusted with the sale of Nicolas Poussin's 'Ordination'. One of the Sacraments, 'Ordination' formed part of the set of seven, a commission to Poussin by one of Rome's most celebrated collectors. The pictures, for which there was no iconographical precedent, became a prize coveted by Popes and Kings. Poussin is without question one of the greatest of all French painters whose influence on the development of European Art from the 17th Century onwards cannot be overstated. Like Titian before him and his contemporaries Caravaggio and Velazquez, he developed a personal, innovative and highly rigorous style of outstanding originality.  His work has been deeply influential on generations of artists up to the present day.

The market for the finest Old Masters continues to show great strength. In the past year we have offered masterpieces by such towering figures as Raphael, Rubens and Rembrandt. It is works by such artists as these that have attracted new collectors from around the world, eager to acquire great art of historical importance. We expect wide international interest and excitement from museums, collectors and the art market generally, when Poussin's remarkable 'Ordination' appears in our next sale in London on 7th December.”

A spokesman for the Trustees said: “After careful consideration the Trustees have made the extremely difficult decision to offer at Christie’s one of the 5 remaining works from the Rutland Sacraments. The original group of 7 pictures was acquired by the 4th Duke of Rutland in 1785 but was divided when ‘Penance’ was lost in a fire, and when ‘Baptism’ went to the National Gallery in Washington in 1946. The proceeds released from the sale of the painting will enable us to realise our core aims of securing the restoration and long-term preservation of Belvoir Castle and Estate. The paintings have been on public display at Belvoir for many years and we have been very happy to lend them to the National Gallery for the last 7 years for the public’s greater enjoyment. Following the successful sale of ‘Ordination’, it is our hope that the 4 remaining paintings will go back on public display at the National Gallery in London.”

ORDINATION by NICOLAS POUSSIN (1594-1665) 

This master piece of art is one of five remaining works which once formed the renowned group of Seven Sacraments acquired by the 4th Duke of Rutland in 1785. One of the most celebrated groups of paintings in the entire history of European art it was executed in the 1630s for Cassiano dal Pozzo, a celebrated antiquary and collector in Rome. The group has since been divided; Penance perished in a fire and Baptism went to the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.

Cassiano dal Pozzo was one of Poussin’s first and most important patrons. His commission of the Sacraments saw Poussin painting a series of works showing how the earliest Christians lived and worshipped in ancient times, connecting the everyday present of papal Rome with the epoch of the Caesars. Such a thing had never been done before. Although earlier artists had often made a conscious attempt to show Christ and the Apostles in the dress of their time, none had done it with such an exhaustive attention to detail, and commitment to accuracy. The originality of the series was such that its fame quickly spread far and wide.

When Nicolas Poussin was summoned to France by Cardinal Richelieu to serve as First Painter to King Louis XIII, he acquired an important new patron in Paul Fréart de Chantelou, a Parisian diplomat who was determined to secure for himself and for France another version of the pictures that had brought such glory to Cassiano, to Rome and to Poussin. This second set is that which is now in the collection of the Dukes of Sutherland, and on loan to The National Gallery of Scotland.

The family collection of Cassiano dal Pozzo’s descendants quickly became a ‘must-see’ landmark of the Grand Tour, and when Sir Robert Walpole attempted to acquire the first group of Sacraments for his collection at Houghton Hall – where he assembled one of the greatest collections in European history - they became the subject of one of the first formal export blocks in history; the export license was denied by the Pope himself, resulting in the cancellation of the Walpole sale. The dealer and agent James Byres could only manage to arrange the sale of the pictures to Charles Manners, 4th Duke of Rutland (1754-1787), by having copies painted (allegedly in the space of a single day) and substituted for the originals, so that they could be smuggled out of Italy.

The 4th Duke was forming a collection to rival Sir Robert Walpole’s, with the advice of none other than Sir Joshua Reynolds, who undoubtedly supported the Duke’s interest in the first group of Sacraments. Reynolds would have known them well from his travels in Italy. When the original seven Rutland Sacraments arrived in London in 1786, they created a stir. King George III expressed a desire to see the 4th Duke’s triumphant new acquisition, and it was Sir Joshua Reynolds who had the privilege and the pleasure of showing the Rutland Poussins to the King, at the Royal Academy in 1787.

The Seven Sacraments took pride of place in the collection at Belvoir Castle not long after their acquisition by the 4th Duke, and hung there almost without break well into the 21st century. One of them, Penance, perished in a fire; another, Baptism, was acquired by The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., in 1946. The remaining five were lent to the landmark exhibitions, Poussin: Sacraments and Bacchanals at The National Gallery of Scotland in 1981, and Nicolas Poussin, 1594-1665, at the Grand Palais in Paris and the Royal Academy in London, 1994-1995, and have been on loan to The National Gallery, London, since 2003.

Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) is recognised as one of the greatest and most influential artists in European art history. Born in France, he moved to Italy in the 1620s where he spent most of his life championing a renaissance in Classical painting at a time when Baroque was the most common style. Having moved to Rome, Poussin soon found wealthy patrons and established an impressive reputation. In 1640 he was summoned by Louis XIII and returned to France as First Painter in Ordinary to the King. He executed a number of prestigious works but quickly grew tired of the jealousy inferred on him by competing artists, returning to Rome in 1643 where he remained until his death.

Christie's London
Old Masters & 19th Century Art Evening Sale
7th December 2010
London, King Street