Jahrbuch des Kunsthistorischen Museums Wien: Band 6/7

Seipel, Wilfried

Bibliographic data

Series

Persistent identifier:: 990025659750203331

ZDB-ID:: 1479978-9

Title:: Jahrbuch des Kunsthistorischen Museums Wien

Place Of Publication:: Wien; Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien

Publisher:: Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien

Document type:: Series

Collection:: House Publications; KHM-Yearbook

Copyright:: Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0); KHM-Museumsverband

Language:: German

ISSN:: 1605-2773

Periodical volume

Persistent identifier:: 0061520

Title:: Band 6/7

Shelfmark:: 10.230

Editor:: Seipel, Wilfried

Volume count:: =98/99

Publisher:: Philipp von Zabern

Document type:: Periodical volume

Collection:: House Publications; KHM-Yearbook

Publication year:: 2004/2005

Copyright:: Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0); KHM-Museumsverband

Language:: Deutsch

Chapter

Title:: Poussin's two versions of The Destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem and other early paintings

Author:: Sparti, Donatella Livia

Donatella Li via S parti Poussins two versions of The Destruction ofthe Temple of Jerusalem and other early paintings* I wish to thank Wolfgang Prohaska for taking an interest in the publication of this article and Sabine Haag for her extraordinary efficiency, not least in obtaining the illustrations. I am indebted to Richard Spear for discussing some of the issues relating to the first Version of the Destruction of Jerusalem and final- ly to Charles Hope for patiently reading several drafts of this article, each time making valuable sug- gestions. 1 Giovan Pietro Bellori, Le Vite de pittori, scultori e architetti moderni, Turin, 1976, pp. 427-428. 2 Pierre Rosenberg, “Rome. Poussins Roman begin- nings,” exhibition review in The Burlington Magazine CXLI (1999), p. 191. Fig. i: Nicolas Poussin, The Destruction ofthe Temple of Jerusalem. 1635. Oil on canvas. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Gemäldegalerie, inv. no. 1336. In his Vite of 1672 Giovan Pietro Bellori teils us that Nicolas Poussin painted two versions of the unusual subject of Titus sacking the Temple of Jerusalem, both for Cardinal Francesco Barberini: “Ma giä tornato a Roma il signor cardinale Francesco Barberini dalle sue legazioni di Francia e Spagna, impiegollo a dipingere, ed egli eiesse di rap- presentare la morte di Germanico. Dipinse ancora la Presa di Gerusalemme per lo medesimo cardinale, il quäle, avendone fatto dono, glie ne fece dipin gere unaltra che riusci piü copiosa e migliore dellaprima, espressovi ilflagel- lo della gente ebrea e l’imperatore Tito vittorioso, a cui piedi altri de’ ribelli cadono troncati orribilmente, altri in atto miserabile vengono condotti con le mani legate, intanto che li soldati vincitori con furia saccheggiano il tempio, e carichi di prede portano via il candelabro, li vasi d’oro e li sacri ornamen- ti; la quäle istoria, che vien lodata fra le piü degne di questo maestro, da Sua Eminenzafu donata ancora alprincipe d’Echembergh, ambasciadore d’ubbi- dienza dell’imperadore a papa Urbano VIII. ” l Bellori implied that the first Version postdated the Death of Germanicus, which he said had been commissioned after Cardinal Barberini returned from his legations in France and Spain, that is to say no earlier than Octo- ber 1626. While we knew that this sequence is mistaken, it is now possi- ble to add that the remaining information is entirely accurate. Until recently it was believed that the first version was lost, while the sec- ond had long been identified with the signed painting now in the Kunst historisches Museum. The two pictures have generally been discussed in the literature with reference to one another, reasonably enough given their common subject and patron. Although it seems to be widely believed that little remains to be said on the topic, it turns out that the conventional view about the circumstances of both pictures’ commissions, their dating and their provenances needs to be corrected in various ways, as I shall try to demonstrate. The implications of the supposed recent discovery of the first version (Fig. 2) are very great, because, if authentic, it would be Poussins earliest known documented painting from his Italian period, apart from two Bat tles now in Russia (Figs. 3 and 4). The identification, however, is open to question, since the attribution to Poussin of the picture discovered on the art market in 1995 and now in the Israel Museum of Jerusalem depends in large part on its provenance. Yet this provenance, although described as being “well known” 2 , turns out to be demonstrably incorrect. As for the Vienna picture (Fig. 1), this was unanimously believed to have been paint ed in 1638, on the basis of a payment related to the frame; and a number of stylistically similar pictures have accordingly been dated to about the same time. But a newly discovered payment for the picture confirms that it is significantly earlier than was hitherto supposed. This payment also demonstrates that the document related to the frame has been misunder-

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