Description
The Inspiration of the Poet by Nicolas Poussin presents Apollo, a Muse and winged children attending a poet. The painting was recorded in Cardinal Mazarin’s collection in 1653.
The Louvre acquired the painting in 1911.
The painting depicts Apollo, accompanied by infant Cupids and by one of the Muses, about to crown a poet who is writing under his inspiration. The gathering presents poetic inspiration as a gift from the gods. Its warm colouring reveals the Titianesque strain in Poussin’s work; it must have been painted during his first Roman period, at the end of the 1620s. Several other paintings of this period are related to this work: The Inspiration of Anacreon, the Parnassus, and the book frontispiece drawn by Poussin and engraved by Claude Mellan for an edition of Virgil published by the Imprimerie Royale in 1641–1642.
Some critics put forward the hypothesis that the model for the Muse, often recognizable in other works of this period by Poussin, may have been Anna Dughet, whom he married in 1630 at San Lorenzo in Lucina (Rome).
Bibliography
The Inspiration of the Poet, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Inspiration_of_the_Poet&oldid=1085231728 (last visited Aug. 10, 2022).
Collection history: Musée du Louvre, L’Inspiration du poète.
Read our guide to giclée prints or browse the Nicolas Poussin collection.
