Nicolas Poussin, 'Ordination', about 1637-40.
On loan from the Duke of Rutland's Trustees, Belvoir Castle, Grantham.

Nicolas Poussin, 'Eucharist', about 1637-40.
On loan from the Duke of Rutland's Trustees, Belvoir Castle, Grantham.

Nicolas Poussin, 'Extreme Unction', about 1637-40.
On loan from the Duke of Rutland's Trustees, Belvoir Castle, Grantham.

Nicolas Poussin, 'Marriage', about 1637-40.
On loan from the Duke of Rutland's Trustees, Belvoir Castle, Grantham.

Nicolas Poussin, 'Confirmation', about 1637-40.
On loan from the Duke of Rutland's Trustees, Belvoir Castle, Grantham.

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'Confirmation'
'Eucharist'
'Extreme Unction'
'Ordination'
'Marriage'

about 1637-40

Nicolas Poussin
(1594 - 1665)

L953 - L957

Five important paintings by Nicolas Poussin have been loaned to the National Gallery by the Trustees of The Duke of Rutland, Belvoir Castle, Grantham. The five were painted as part of a series depicting the seven sacraments: 'Baptism' and 'Penance' completed the set.

The seven sacraments had long been sacred rites in the Catholic Church and were formally reaffirmed by the Council of Trent in 1545-47. However, as a series they are rare in 17th-century Western art. This subject was probably suggested to Poussin by his Roman patron, Cassiano dal Pozzo.

The precise dates of the paintings and the order in which they were painted is unknown, but it is generally agreed that they were painted in the years around 1637-1640, except for 'Baptism', which was painted in 1640-42. Poussin and dal Pozzo were both enthusiastic antiquarians and this is apparent in the treatment of the scenes that they probably devised together. Each of the sacraments is illustrated with a scene from the New Testament or as historians believed the ritual would have been performed in the earliest days of Christianity.

Poussin has incorporated a human touch into these paintings of serious subjects, for example the maidservant in 'Extreme Unction', the nervous child in 'Confirmation' and the turbanned woman at the left-hand side of 'Marriage' who is craning her neck to see the ceremony. In 'Ordination' he carefully differentiates the gestures and poses of each of the apostles, and in 'Eucharist' the play of light from the three candles illuminating the scene is derived from a treatise on light and shadow by dal Pozzo. Poussin's 'Sacraments' so impressed his Paris patron Chantelou that he asked for copies. Poussin however preferred to make a different set - this second series is now on loan from the Duke of Sutherland to the National Gallery of Scotland.

The purchase of the first series of the 'Sacraments' by Sir Robert Walpole (d. 1745) was blocked by the then Pope, and it was only in 1786 that Charles, 4th Duke of Rutland succeeded in bringing them to this country. At the time Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was advising the duke and who arranged for the paintings to be installed in their current frames, declared 'Rome…is now much poorer, as England is richer than it was, by this acquisition.' The paintings were hung in Belvoir Castle in Lincolnshire. 'Penance' was destroyed by fire in 1816, and 'Baptism' was sold to the National Gallery of Art, Washington in 1939. The other five remain the property of the Trustees of The Duke of Rutland, Grantham.

The National Gallery has an exceptionally strong holding of paintings by Poussin, but no group comparable to these five paintings from Belvoir.

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