Ecstasy of Saint Paul

Artist Nicolas Poussin (French, 1594 - 1665)

Date1643

CultureFrench

MediumOil on wood

ClassificationPaintings

ProvenancePainted in 1643 for Paul Fréart de Chantelou (1609–1694), Rome. By 1713, Nicolas de Launay (1646–1727), Paris; presumably purchased in 1727 by Louis (1703–1752), duc d’Orléans, Paris; Louis Philippe (1725–1785), duc d’Orléans, Paris; Louis Philippe Joseph (1747–1793), duc d’Orléans, Paris; sold in 1791 with the French and Italian paintings of the Orléans collection to vicomte Edouard de Walkiers, Brussels; sold in 1792 to Walquiers’s cousin, François Louis Joseph (d. 1801), comte Laborde de Méréville, Paris and London; (consigned from 1792–98 to Jeremiah Harman, London); (sold to Michael Bryan, acting on behalf of the 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, the 5th Earl of Carlisle, and Lord Gower); Francis Egerton, 3rd Duke of Bridgewater, Frederick Howard, 5th Earl of Carlisle, and George Granville Leveson-Gower, later 1st Duke of Sutherland, London; (sold Orléans sale, Mr. Bryan’s Gallery, Pall Mall, London, 26 December 1798, lot 28, for 400 guineas, to William Smith); by 1824, George Watson Taylor (1771–1841), London and Erlestoke Park, near Devizes, Wiltshire; (offered Taylor sale, Christie’s, London, 14 June 1823, lot 53, bought in); (sold Taylor sale, Henry J. & George Henry Robins, Erlestoke Park, near Devizes, Wiltshire, 25 July 1832, lot 159, for £71–80s, to Agar); Prince Mikhail Semenovich Vorontsov (1782–1856), Alupka, Crimea; by inheritance to Maria Vassilievna Vorontsova (1819–1894), who in 1880 took the painting to her villa in Montughi, near Florence; by inheritance to her son, Nicolas Stolypin (d. 1899, in Paris); (sold Stolypin sale, Giulio Sambon, Florence, at the Villa Vorontsova, Via Santa Marta, Montughi, near Florence, 23 April 1900, lot 388). Dr. Adolf Hommel, Zurich, Switzerland; (sold Hommel sale, J. M. Heberle, Zurich, 20 August 1909, lot 108, for 2,200 Swiss francs). By 1917, Dr. Karl Lanz, Mannheim. (Purchased in Germany by Frederick Mont); (sold to Rosenberg and Stiebel, New York); purchased by the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida, 1956.

Credit LineMuseum purchase, 1956

Object numberSN690

In this painting, Nicolas Poussin faced the task of flattering his major patron, Paul Frèart de Chantelou, and competing with the celebrated Renaissance artist Raphael. Chantelou owned Raphael's 'Vision of Ezekiel' and intended to hang Poussin's painting next to the earlier work. According to the New Testament, angels carried Paul to the Third Heaven during an ecstatic vision. Poussin chose the subject of St. Paul as a natural complement to the Old Testament Hebrew prophet Ezekiel, and to honor his patron.

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