Nicolas Poussin ‘copy’ is real thing, art experts find
A NATIONAL Gallery painting dismissed for decades as a Nicolas Poussin copy has been confirmed as the real thing.
Anthony Blunt, the disgraced former surveyor of the Queen’s pictures, was among the art experts to assert that The Triumph of Silenus was one of several copies of Poussin’s “lost” original.
However, conservation work and technical analysis has found that to be false. It appeared to have coarsely painted figures and a dull palette because of a layer of discoloured varnish. Imaging techniques revealed changes made during painting, undermining the argument that it was a copy.
The painting was commissioned in around 1635-36 by Cardinal de Richelieu to hang in the Cabinet du Roi room of his chateau alongside two other works: The Triumph of Pan (also in the National Gallery) and The Triumph of Bacchus (in the Nelson-atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City).
Scientists at Nelson-atkins established that all three works were painted on canvas from the same bolt of cloth, while comparison of the paint pigments showed similar mixtures and components.
The Triumph of Silenus was one of the first paintings acquired by the gallery in 1824 and it was initially considered to be an autograph work.
But doubt was cast on its authenticity from the 1940s onwards. It was rejected by many Poussin specialists including Blunt, who said it featured “curiously blank and meaningless areas”.
The picture will go on display in Poussin and the Dance, a National Gallery exhibition opening in October.