Artist: Gaspard Poussin also known as Gaspard Dughet (French, 1615 – 1675).
Medium: Antique steel engraving on wove paper after the original by Master Engraver William Radclyffe (English, 1783 – 1855).
Signature: Signed in the plate.
Dimensions: Image Size – 4 5/8 x 5 7/8 inches.
Framed Dimensions: Approximately 14 x 15 inches.
Framing: This piece has been professionally matted and framed using all new materials.
The picture before us besides the harmony and beauty of the scene, contains much matter for reflection. The tranquil loveliness of the stream, the deep shade of the trees, the rugged and caverned-like rocks rising on either side, buildings which seem to be tombs as much as the abodes of men, a shaggy hill pinnacled, and inaccessible to all save the eagles, overlooking the scene, while on the other side, a palace, or town on fire, throwing up a volume of mingled smoke and flame far into the air.
Gaspard Dughet, also known as Gaspard Poussin, was a French painter born in Rome. Dughet was born in Rome, the son of a French pastry-cook and his Italian wife. He has always generally been considered as a French painter, although in fact he never visited France. In around 1635 he became a pupil of Nicolas Poussin, who had married his sister Anne five years earlier. Because of this connection he was widely known as “Gaspard Poussin” He specialised in painting landscapes of the Roman Campagna becoming, along with his exact contemporary Salvator Rosa, one of the two leading landscape painters of his time. He painted several cycles of frescoes, including one, showing various sites around Rome, at the Colonna Palace. He worked with Pier Francesco Mola, Cozza, and Mattia Preti at the Palazzo Pamphilj in Valmontone. He often collaborated with Guillaume Courtois who painted the staffage in his landscapes. This was the case, for instance, in the works for the Palazzo Pamphilj. There is another fresco cycle by Dughet, though in a bad state of preservation, in San Martino ai Monti. Dughet died in Rome on 27 May 1675. During the 18th century Dughet’s work became especially popular amongst British collectors, to such an extent that his name became attached to almost any classical landscape, and his style proved influential on British landscape painting and garden design. His Sacrifice of Abraham, once the property of the Colonna, is now, with other of his works, in the National Gallery, London.