Midas Washing at the Source of the Pactolus

Painting • Paintings

Created in 1632 during the Baroque period, this work belongs firmly within the daily life tradition. Nicolas Poussin worked at a moment when the rivalry between Catholic Baroque drama and Protestant restraint reshaped what a painting could mean. Every gesture, fabric, and gleam of light was decoded by contemporary viewers like a private language.

The physical object — Oil on canvas, 38 3/8 x 28 5/8 in. (97.5 x 72.7 cm) — carries its own history of handling and restoration. Nicolas Poussin's brushwork here moves between exacting description and looser, more suggestive passages, a balance typical of Baroque studio practice.

Look closely and the painting opens up. Objects you might pass over — a folded letter, a half-drawn curtain, the angle of a glance — were placed to be read. Even the everyday is loaded: a basin, a candle, a worn shoe become small monuments to a vanished daily world.

Today the painting is held by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where it remains a touchstone for understanding Nicolas Poussin's contribution to Western art. It has been studied, copied, restored, and argued over for centuries — proof that great paintings keep generating new readings long after their creators have gone.

“A silence so complete it becomes its own witness.”