Collective work – Published by Edition des Musées Nationaux, 1960
Exhibition catalogue (by Anthony Blunt)
Dear Director General,
I have the honour of sending you the attached samples from the exhibition catalogue which the Painting Department is dedicating this year to one of the less popular of the grand masters, in France at least, Nicolas Poussin.
Never before has anyone tried to bring together the majority of this artist’s work. To make this display a tribute, you have agreed, Sir, for it to take place in the Louvre itself, not far from the Italian works of art against which Poussin dared to measure himself, without expecting, in his modesty, to ever live up to them. What could be called, in the style of an allegory from times gone by, the “Triumph of Poussin”, will take place a stone’s throw from this great gallery where he experienced such tribulations.
(beginning of the preface by Germain Bazin) [translated]