Bulletin du Musée National de Varsovie (2.1961)

John Rupert Martin

PORTRAITS OF POUSSIN AND RUBENS IN WORKS
BY DANIEL SEGHERS

Among the Flemish paintings of the National Museum is a signed flower-piece by the
Jcsuit artist Daniel Seghers with the portrait of Nicolas Poussin (Fig. I).1 It is typical of
Segliers' work in representing against a dark background a stone cartouche wreathed with
flowers, in the center of which is a plaąue with the likeness of the French painter sculptured
in Iow relief. A heavy cloak is draped about his shoulder and be holds a porte-crayon in his
left hand. The relief, with its chipped and irregular edges, has appropriately been madę
to resemble an antique marble fragment. Incised in the stone above the artist's head are the
words TRIA FGO. The portrait itself (Fig. 2) is not by Seghers7 hand, for the Jesuit pain-
ter invariably left the central subject of his flower-piece to be executed by another artist.
Occasionally the identity of the collaborator is known; in the present instance he remains
anonymous.

Charles Sterling, who first identified the portrait as that of Poussin, has shown2 that
it exactly duplicates the painting of himself which Poussin made for Pointel in 1649 and which
is now in the Gemaldegalerie at Berlin (Fig. 3). It is no doubt true, Sterling argues, that
the Warsaw picture was not copied from Poussin"s original portrait, but from the engraving
made after it by Jean Pesne (Fig. 4), in which the figurę is reversed. For the fact that
in Seghers' painting the artist faces in the same direction as in the original may signify no-
thing morę than that the figurę was copied from the engraving in the reverse sense in or-
der to conform to the usual system of lighting from the left side. In both Poussin's self-por-
trait and in Pesne's engraving the artist's right hand rests on a book iuscribed DE LUMINE
ET COLORE; this detail has been suppressed in Seghers' picture. The eyes, moreover, have
been left blank so as to heighten the illusion of relief sculpture.

Although the picture is not dated it must belong among the late works of Seghers. The
lerminus post quem is of course established by Poussin's self-portrait of 1649. Pointel, for
whom the painting was made, did not receive it until the following year3. The work then pas-
sed to Cerisier, precisely when is not known: it seems already to have been in his possession
when Pesne made his engraving, which carries a dedication to Cerisier4. The cngraving is un-
dated, but obviously cannot be earlier than 1650. It thus follows that the Warsaw painting,
sińce it depends directly on Pesne's engraving, must fali between 1650 and 1661, the year
of Seghers' death. The portrait of Poussin, it might be added, is not posthumous. For the
great French artist, who died in 1665, survived Seghers by some four years.

The Warsaw picture is not the only work by Segliers that portrays a celebrated artist.
In the Art Museum of Princeton University there is a flower-piece by him containing the
portrait of Peter Paul Rubens (Fig. 5)". The formal arrangement is similar: the elaborate
stone cartouche is adorned with bouquets of flowers, and in the center appears the effigy
of the artist, painted in a brownish monochrome. Rubens is bareheadcd, and wears a lace
collar and gold chain; a cloak is thrown about the shoulders. The eyes, as in the picture
of Poussin, have been left blank.

1. Muzeum Narodou-e w Warszauie, Katalog Galerii Malarstwa Obcego, Warsaw, 11*38, pp. 97, 172, no. 158, pi. 99 (Iicre
described as a sclf-portrait of Segliers).

2. C. Sterling, La naturę rnorte de Vanliquite a nos jours. Paris, 1952, p. 130, note 92.

3. C. Jouanny (ed.), Correspundanee de Nicolai Poussin, Paris, 1911. pp. 114 ff.

4. G. Wildensteiu, ,,Les grayeurs de Poussin au XVIIe sieele", Gazette des Iieaux-Arts, ser. 6, XLVI, 1955, pp. 99 f.

5. J. R. Martin, ,,A Portrait of Rubens by Daniel Segbers", Rseord of the Art Museum, Prineeton Vniversilv, XVII,
1958, pp. 2 ff.

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