Reuters has the just-announced sale of this Nicolas Poussin work, one of five owned by the Duke of Rutland (there was talk of selling the set for $100 million at the height of the art boom), which Christie’s will offer in its London Old Master sales in December:
Ordination, painted in the 1630s, was one of the Seven Sacraments depicted by the artist for Cassiano dal Pozzo, a celebrated collector in Rome. Of the set of seven, “Penance” was destroyed in a fire nearly 200 years ago and “Baptism” went to the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.
The other five — “Ordination,” “Confirmation,” “Eucharist,” “Extreme Unction” and “Marriage” — are in the possession of the Belvoir Estate, the estate of the Dukes of Rutland, and have been on loan to the National Gallery in London.
“The proceeds released from the sale of the painting will enable us to realize our core aims of securing the restoration and long-term preservation of Belvoir Castle and Estate,” said a statement from the estate.
According to Christie’s, the pope tried to intervene to prevent the series being sold out of Italy in the late 18th century.
