Der Sieg Josuas über die Amalekiter

Poussin was still new to Rome when he painted this in the mid-1620s, building a name far from France. In 1625 his great supporter, the poet Giambattista Marino, died, and money grew tight, so he sold this battle scene together with its companion piece showing Joshua fighting the Amorites. The subject comes from Exodus: Joshua battles the Amalekites in the desert while Moses watches from a hilltop, and Israel prevails only as long as his arms stay raised. Poussin packs the canvas with twisting, muscular figures, the kind of charged movement he was studying from ancient reliefs and from Raphael all around him. The two paintings stayed a pair for close to three centuries before they were finally separated in 1927.