Midas an der Quelle des Pactolus

Poussin painted this around 1626, a young Frenchman a couple of years into a new life in Rome, making small learned pictures for collectors who knew their Ovid by heart. The story comes from the Metamorphoses. King Midas had wished that everything he touched turn to gold, then found he could not eat or drink, since bread and water hardened the moment he held them. The god Bacchus took pity and told him to wash the curse away in the river Pactolus. That is the instant here. Midas kneels at the spring in the reddish light of a dying day, and a young man beside him stares at his own cupped palm, where the water is leaving flecks of gold. The Greeks said that was why the Pactolus ran gold ever after.