- Museum number
- 1918,0615.6
- Description
-
A Roman altar, now in the Vatican Museum, Rome; a ram's head in relief at left with a sphinx below, Romulus and Remus with the she-wolf at lower r
Pen and brown ink, brown wash, partial red chalk framing lines
- Production date
- 1642 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 209 millimetres
-
Width: 116 millimetres
- Curator's comments
- The altar was in the Giustiniani collection and is now in the Museo Chiaromonti in the Vatican. The three-dimensional quality of the drawing suggests that Poussin was studying the original marble and not a print or drawings made after it. The present study was copied, along with an altar taken from another source, perhaps also by Poussin, on folio 40 of the so-called 'Album de Louviers', an album of drawings offered for auction in Louviers in 2005. The album consists largely of copies after Poussin. These two altars also appear on another sheet with copies after Poussin, but by another hand, now in Besançon.
Lit.: W. Friedlaender and A. Blunt (eds.), 'The drawings of Nicolas Poussin, catalogue raisonné: drawings after the Antique, miscellaneous drawings addenda', London, 1974, V, no 315, p. 32, pl. 250; H. Brigstocke, in exhib. cat., Oxford, Ashmolean, 'A loan exhibition of drawings by Nicolas Poussin from British collections', 1990, no. 34; P. Rosenberg and L.-A. Prat, 'Nicolas Poussin, 1594 -1665: catalogue raisonné des dessins', Milan, 1994, no. 236 (with further literature ); C. Hattori, 'Problèmes autour de trois dessins de Poussin (1594 - 1665)', "Revue du Louvre", XLVIII, 2, April 1998, p. 53, fig. 13; P. Rosenberg, 'Un ensemble de copies de dessins d'après l'Antique de Poussin', "Studiolo: Revue de l'histoire de l'art de l'Académie de France à Rome", 2006, no. 4, p.139, fig. 27
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1968 BM, Piranesi, no.9
1990/1 Dec-Feb, Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, Drawings by Poussin, no.34
2000 Mar-Jun, Rome, Palazzo delle Esposizione, 'Roma Antica e Moderna..'
- Acquisition date
- 1918
- Acquisition notes
- According to Friedlaender Barry was an assistant in the Royal Library, Windsor Castle.
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1918,0615.6