Not a dupe, this info not in our exhibit review

AP – POUSSIN’S LONG-SUNDERED PAINTING REJOINED FOR EXHIBIT AT THE MET

AVV 2-12 #728736

NEW YORK CITY (AP) — Severed in two since the Eighteenth Century, an important canvas by a prominent French painter has been reunited in one frame for the first time since it was sliced apart, a newspaper reported February 9.

Nicolas Poussin’s “Landscape with a River God” and “Venus and Adonis” were joined in a bronze-tone wood frame Friday at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The 1625–27 canvas will be on view there as part of a Poussin exhibition through May 11.

“Landscape with a River God” has been on extended loan to the Met since 1991; the companion piece belongs to the Musee Fabre in Montpellier, France. They have been displayed together in various shows during the last decade, but they have not been in a single frame since at least 1771, The New York Times reported.

Poussin, who lived from 1594 to 1665, was known for painting subjects from ancient history, classical mythology and the Bible, but also enjoyed an impressive command of landscapes, according to a Met release about the upcoming exhibit.

Crafted for an Italian patron, the newly rejoined canvas sets a scene from Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” against the backdrop of Mount Cavo, near Rome.

About 80 inches wide by 30 inches tall, the painting was included in the patron’s family’s inventories under the name “View of Grottaferrata” until at least 1741. The painting was apparently split in two by 1771, according to the Times.

“It was probably easier to sell as two paintings rather than one,” said Pierre Rosenberg, the director emeritus of Paris’ Louvre museum, who organized the New York show with Keith Christiansen, the Met’s curator of European paintings.

With “Landscape With a River God” on the left and “Venus and Adonis” on the right, the reunited canvas gives a fuller sense of the flow of the light and landscape in Poussin’s warmly toned, pastoral image.