La Danse des saisons

The existence of such a painting is attested by the entry in the artist's will of 1662, a preparatory drawing and an etching. When the present version of high quality emerged, Marcel Roethlisberger, who wrote the critical catalogue of the artist's works (Yale University Press, 1961) and is the leading authority on Claude Lorrain, published it in two detailed articles (1987, 1989), which met with a positive response in the specialist literature. Around 2020, another version appeared at a small auction. Its poor condition no longer allows a closer judgement, but certain details reveal that while the Zurich version gives the best idea of the painting, it is not the original. The concept is based on a Concetto by Giulio Rospigliosis (1600-1669), the later Pope Clement IX, whom around 1635 Poussin had also treated on his behalf (London, Wallace Collection). The group of the sun god, designed after Apollo from the Belvedere, with the four seasons evoking the cyclical rhythm of nature and equated with the Graces, follows an illustration of the iconographic manual by Vincenzo Cartari: Le Imagini de i Dei de gli antichi (1571). The figure of Chronos, the god of time, unusually portrayed with the lyre, referring to the harmony of the spheres, follows on from the corresponding figure in Poussin. Intended for his favorite nephew Jean according to Claude's testament in 1662, he probably painted the original panel and only allegory for himself, further developing his etching on the same theme dated 1662 and its preparatory drawing. Source