Landscape with Polyphemus (Paysage avec Polyphème) is a 1649 oil painting by French artist Nicolas Poussin. It is held in the Hermitage Museum, in Saint Petersburg.
Theme The painting refers to a Spanish literary work La Fábula de Polifemo y Galatea and Ovid's Metamorphoses. It was commissioned by French banker Jean Pointel and depicts characters from Greek mythology. In the foreground pictured are semi-nude nymphs watched by satyrs hidden in the nearby bushes. On green fields behind them people listen to music played on a flute by the Cyclops Polyphemus, who appears to be blended into rocky mountains in the background.
History In 1722 the painting was acquired for the Spanish king Philip V by Andrea Procaccini, a student of Carlo Maratta. Later, it was part of the collection of a French marquess who sold it in 1772 to a Russian prince, with the help of Denis Diderot, in order to pay a gambling debt.Youri Zolotov, Natalia Serebriannaïa, Nicolas Poussin, Parkstone International, 2018 (read on line in French). See also Paysage avec Polyphème, copie d'après Nicolas Poussin in the Collection database of the Louvre museum. It is now located in Saint Petersburg as part of the Hermitage Museum's collection.
See also List of paintings by Nicolas Poussin
References