The incident depicted here is from Livy's account of the life of Republican leader and general Furius Camillus. While the general was besieging the town of Falerii, a local schoolmaster lured his pupils to the Roman camp, hoping to offer them as hostages. Finding the schoolmaster guilty of treason, Camillus offered him up to his students for punishment. The schoolmaster's twisted and distorted figure becomes a symbol of immorality and evil. The ethical Camillus, by contrast, is erect and well proportioned. Whatever the political overtones, Poussin's composition encourages us to contemplate the difference between shapeless ugliness and harmonious form.
Details
- Artist Name: Nicolas Poussin (French, 1594-1665)
- Title: Camillus and the Schoolmaster of Falerii
- Date: c. 1635-40
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 39 5/8 x 54 in. (100.6 x 137.2 cm)
- Credit Line: The Norton Simon Foundation
- Accession Number: F.1970.14.P
- Copyright: © The Norton Simon Foundation
Object Information
Neyret de la Ravoye, in 1701.
J. Meijers, Rotterdam (sale, 9 September 1722, lot 1, as smaller of two works titled Furius Camillus, sold to);
Cornelis Wittert van Valkenburg, Rotterdam (sale, 11 April 1731, lot 4, bought-in);
Van Valkenberg, Rotterdam (sale, 7 October 1733, lot 14, sold to);
H. de Lange, The Hague.
Fürsten zu Schaumburg-Lippe, by 1738, (sale, Bückeburg, 3 April 1929, to);
Rosenbaum, Frankfort.
Prince Paul of Yugoslavia, sold 4 August 1931 to;
[Julius Böhler, Munich; stock nos. 31-62 / 7379, sold a 1/2 share to];
[Lucerne Fine Art Co., Lucerne, sold 5 April 1934 to];
Henri-Lévy, Strasbourg, by descent to;
Heirs of Henri-Lévy; offered November 1969 and subsequently sold 1970, by Claude Lang, Brussels (son-in-law of Henri-Lévy),
through Kenneth Walker, New York, to;
The Norton Simon Foundation.
[on loan]
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1970 to
[on loan]
- Art Institute of Chicago, 1971 to 1973
Reinstallation of Galleries: Art History of the 17th and 18th Century Gains Fresh Dimension
- Norton Simon Museum, 1993-09-02 to 1995-08-13
Three Centuries of French Art: Selections from The Norton Simon, Inc. Museum of Art and The Norton Simon Foundation_1
- California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 1973-05-03 to 1976-06-15
- Selected Paintings at the Norton Simon Museum Pasadena, California, p. 67
- Thuillier, Jacques, Tout l'oeuvre peint de Poussin, no. 89 p. 96
- Friedlander, Walter, Gazette des Beaux Arts, pp. 52-57
- Schnapper, A.; and M. J. Massat, Bulletin de la Société de l'Histoire de l'Art français, pp. 99-108
- Szanto, Mickaël, The Burlington Magazine, fig. 1 p. 197
- Harris, Ann Sutherland, The Burlington Magazine, pp. 294, 295
- Mahon, D., The Burlington Magazine, p. 303
- Mahon, D., Gazette des Beaux-Arts, p. 100
- Félibien, André, Entretiens sur les vies et sur les ouvrages des plus excellens peintres anciens et modernes, 1685, p. 176
- Smith, John, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the most Eminent Dutch, Flemish and French painters, 1837, no. 175 p. 94
- Friedlander, Walter; and Anthony Blunt, The Drawings of Nicolas Poussin: A Catalogue Raisonné, 1939, p. 12
- Blunt, Anthony, The French Drawings in the Collection of His Majesty the King at Windsor Castle, 1945, under no. 190 p. 39
- Mahon, D., Actes, 1960, p. 261
- Blunt, Anthony, The Paintings of Nicolas Poussin: A Critical Catalogue, 1966, no. 143 pp. 102-103
- Gelder, Jan Gerrit van, Overdruk uit het Rotterdams Jaarboekje, 1974, p. 172
- Thuillier, Jacques, L'opera completa de Poussin, 1974, no. 89 p. 96
- Morse, John D., Old Master Paintings in North America, 1979, p. 205
- Rosenberg, Pierre, France in the Golden Age: Seventeenth-Century French Paintings in American Collections, 1982, no. 9 p. 370
- Wright, Christopher, The French Painters of the 17th Century, 1985, p. 252
- Wollheim, Richard, Painting as an Art, 1987, fig. 190 p. 213
- Bonadella, Peter, The Eternal City: Roman Images in the Modern World, 1987, fig. 20 p. 98
- Le Siècle de Caragave dans les collections françaises, 1988, pp. 305, 307
- Masterpieces from the Norton Simon Museum, 1989, p. 62
- Rosenberg, Pierre, Nicolas Poussin: 1594-1665, 1994, fig. 48a p. 213
- Verdi, Richard, Nicolas Poussin, 1594-1665, 1995, n. 39, 41 p. 30
- Blunt, Anthony, Nicolas Poussin, 1995, pp. 161, 168
- Olson, Todd P., Poussin and France: Painting, Humanism and the Politics of Style, 2002, fig. 25 pp. xiv, 36, 38, 43-50, 43, 53-54, 56-59, 67, 137, 172
- Campbell, Sara, Collector Without Walls: Norton Simon and His Hunt for the Best, 2010, cat. 739 p. 333
- Jacques Thuillier, Nicolas Poussin, 2015, fig. 109 p. 534
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