The Nurture of Jupiter

The Nurture of Jupiter from 1635 at the Dulwich Picture Gallery depicts the infant king of the gods being raised by the goat Amalthea in the care of the nymphs of Ida, hidden from his father Saturn who had been swallowing his children to prevent a prophesied overthrow. Poussin's mythological pastorals create visions of divine nurture within idealized classical landscapes where the natural world participates in the protection of divine life. Working in Rome from 1624 onwards, he served a cultivated international clientele whose tastes encompassed both the philosophical and the pastoral, and his Jupiter-Amalthea treatments combined classical erudition with pastoral warmth that made them particularly appealing to collectors who wanted learned decoration. The Dulwich Picture Gallery, one of Britain's oldest public galleries, holds this among its distinguished collection of seventeenth-century paintings, where it can be seen alongside other works from the period that defined European painting's engagement with classical antiquity.

The pastoral composition groups nurturing figures in a classical landscape. Poussin's warm palette and balanced handling create a scene of mythological tenderness.