Nicolas Poussin, ‘The Triumph of Pan’, 1636.
Poussin’s ‘The Triumph of Pan’ goes on tour Over a period of one year the annual ‘National Gallery Masterpiece Tour’ offers three museums and galleries outside London the opportunity to display a major work from the National Gallery’s collection. In 2019, Nicolas Poussin’s ‘The Triumph of Pan’ will be loaned to three British museums.]]>
January 6th, 2019, source: National Gallery of Art, London
Nicolas Poussin’s ‘The Triumph of Pan’, 1636, shows nymphs and satyrs revelling before a statue of Pan, the god of woods and fields. Pan’s identity in this work may have been combined with that of Priapus, a deity of gardens. Both are associated with fertility and Bacchic ritual. The painting contains a number of literary and visual references; the instruments being played, the sacrificial deer, and the props in the foreground are all either attributes of Pan and Priapus, or are linked with such rites. These include panpipes, theatrical masks (comedy, tragedy, and, satire), and a shepherd’s staff. This picture was commissioned by Cardinal de Richelieu and dispatched from Rome to Paris in May 1636.
Victoria Art Gallery, Bath. 11 April – 7 July 2019
At Bath’s Victoria Art Gallery, Poussin’s masterpiece will be shown alongside works from Bath & North East Somerset Council’s own art collection, which includes works from the 15th century to the present day.
York Art Gallery. 12 July – 22 September 2019
The next stop on the tour is York Art Gallery, founded in 1892, which has a rich collection spanning over six hundred years of Western art, from the 14th century to the present day.
Auckland Castle, part of The Auckland Project, County Durham. 5 October 2019 – 5 January 2020
The final venue in the 2019 Masterpiece Tour is Auckland Castle, one of the most important and best-preserved medieval bishops’ palaces in Europe.
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