Bacchic Scene

A faun with goat's legs, crowned with ivy, tips his head back to drink from a cup that a small cupid holds up for him, while a naked bacchante stands by with a pitcher. Poussin painted this small canvas in Rome between 1626 and 1628. The museum thinks a particular story lies behind it, though nobody has identified which. The handling is fast and unpolished, the colour held down to browns and greys with a few strokes of crimson. The picture turns up again in Rotterdam in the early 18th century, among the paintings of the merchant Jacques Meijers, whose sale papers describe it with measurements that still match the canvas. Philip V of Spain bought it for his palace at La Granja, and a second version of the same composition is in Moscow.