The Agony in the Garden

The Artist: For details of Nicolas Poussin’s biography, see the essay in the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History.

The Painting: Poussin executed this oil on copper between 1626 and 1627, a crucial moment just after arriving in Rome from Paris in 1624, when he was brimming with innovation and curiosity but had not yet attained a firm footing in the city’s art world. Meticulously conceived and executed on an exceptionally large sheet of copper of only about one millimeter thick, it was clearly intended as an attention-seeking bid at artistic recognition. The painting’s early provenance indicates that Poussin’s efforts paid off: probably commissioned by the Genoese art dealer Stefano Roccatagliata (d. 1652), the painting soon entered the collection of Carlo Antonio dal Pozzo (1606–1689), the brother of Cassiano dal Pozzo (1588–1657), the antiquarian-connoisseur who would become Poussin’s greatest Roman patron (also see the provenance of 1977.1.2). A Latin inscription written across the bare copper of the reverse (see fig. 1 above) names the work’s subject and author and is consistent with the way in which the dal Pozzo collection was inventoried.

Poussin depicts an exceptionally metaphysical subject of the Agony in the Garden, as described in the three synoptic gospels. After the Last Supper, on the night before his crucifixion, Christ and three of his disciples, Saints Peter, James, and John, find themselves in a garden, which some texts name as Gethsemane, at the foot of the Mount of Olives. Although he bids his disciples to remain vigilant as he briefly takes their leave, they quickly fall asleep. Alone in the nocturnal landscape, Christ foresees his betrayal and the pain his mortal body will experience the next day. He asks his heavenly father to spare him. The metaphor of a cup, both foretelling of the Eucharist and evocative of classical tropes of suicide by hemlock (see 31.45), stands in for what he will endure, materializing an abstract concept. He asks, "Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me. Not yet my will but your will be done. And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him," as relayed in the Gospel of Luke (22:42–43). In the Eastern Orthodox Church this episode is, in fact, called the Prayer of the Cup. Whether or not the scriptural reference was intended to be taken literally, for artists the presence of a cup allowed for a visualization of an essentially internal and spiritual struggle as Christ faces his mortality and dual nature: human and divine. As depicted by Poussin, the angel who appears is accompanied by a glory of brilliantly conceived angels, who deliver a cross to earth, a further premonition of the events of the next morning. Although a frequent subject in European painting, Poussin solves the difficulty of depicting, in effect, two subjects in the same small field through a zigzag composition, linking foreground and background, such that the eye moves across the disciples’ bodies up to the landscape where Christ reaches toward, but has not yet grasped, the cup extended to him through the clouds.

This painting clearly documents Poussin’s voracious absorption of the artistic traditions that he had traveled to Italy in order to study. His innovative and learned rearticulation of them as his own was, no doubt, what led to his almost immediate recognition as a leading light by Roman cognoscenti and paved the way for their patronage of larger-scale works.

In terms of taking a somber religious subject and treating it at this relatively small scale on copper, Poussin was positioning himself amongst the foremost Italian painters of the previous generation: Poussin’s contemporaries would have seen this painting as carrying on the tradition of Annibale Carracci (2009.252), Ludovico Carracci (2007.330), and Domenichino (1976.155.2; 2008.72). In addition to allowing for a crystalline, jewel-like surface, a copper support of this scale would have been far more expensive than canvas, and it announced an ambitious project intended for close inspection in a collector’s cabinet.

Choices about how to depict the scene reveal Poussin’s interest in Venetian Renaissance painting and in antiquity, two threads that he innovatively weaves together. Poussin had arrived in Rome via Venice, where he studied Veronese, Tintoretto, and, in particular, Titian, whose luminous light effects and theme of putti proved particularly important. Poussin could continue to study these artists in the major Roman collections to which he was increasingly exposed. Titian’s use of putti in profane subjects such as the exuberant Worship of Venus (1518; Museo del Prado, Madrid) was extrapolated by Poussin in the 1620s for both bacchanalian themes (his other major preoccupation in this period) and religious ones (a similar adaptation for a glory of angels is found, for example, in Poussin’s nearly contemporaneous Holy Family [1997.117.6]). Again, considering Titian’s legacy, close looking reveals the tiny figures of The Agony in the Garden to each embody a personality and active role in relaying the scene. They seem joyously unaware of the import of the cross they help bring to earth; one of them is almost humorously ill-equipped to land the giant cross, bouncing, it would seem, on one foot before Christ. More broadly, Venetian interest in light effects is everywhere to be found in the painting’s upper register, articulating a complex structure of clouds and drawing attention the key figures with great precision: the tips of the angel’s wings, the lip of the cup, and the face of the Christ are each brought into high relief. The way light hits the earth on which Christ rests not only underscores his centrality, but also establishes a grounding, spatial marker in an otherwise fluid terrain at the intersection of terrestrial and celestial space. The jewel tones and complicated cloud forms also evince Poussin’s awareness of Guido Reni (59.32). Many of these features that read in retrospect as a detour into the Baroque, albeit via the Venetian Renaissance, would be abandoned as Poussin reached artistic maturity. Keith Christiansen has proposed the immediate relevance in Rome of Giovanni Lanfranco's treatment of the same subject, a fresco in San Giovanni dei Fiorentini (fig. 2). Though its condition has suffered, it made a great impact among Roman artists in the 1620s.

Contrasting with the luminosity of Christ’s vision, the disciples’ bodies rest in the foreground with the monumentality of sculpture, their weightiness pointing to Poussin’s interest in antiquity. This thread would win out in Poussin’s overall artistic development and impact on European painting. Poussin pulled not only from encounters with the stone fragments being unearthed in Rome and being studied in Cassiano dal Pozzo’s circle (his friend and sometime housemate, was the sculptor and restorer François Duquesnoy [03.12.7]), but also an Italian tradition of solemn geometries. The figure at foreground right in particular relates to the closed, monumental figures of Michelangelo and Andrea Mantegna (see, for example, fig. 3) and the classical reductive forms of Raphael (32.130.1). In its blocky severity, the massive stone architecture that provides a backdrop—running across the upper right and dipping to the middle left, below the cliff—further announces Poussin’s interest in antiquity. Though the structure has not been identified, it may be intended to signal the foundation of the early Christian church and compares with examples of such architecture that would have been known to Poussin in and around Rome (fig. 4).

Though Poussin executed many images of The Holy Family, among them The Met’s roughly contemporaneous oil on canvas (1997.117.6), the fact that he completed relatively few religious subjects when compared with historical or profane compositions is partially explained by Poussin’s reflection on having completed a Christ Carrying the Cross for fellow artist Jacques Stella. In a remarkably insightful letter to Stella from 1646, Poussin described his artistic process as one not of manual skill but of mental anguish: "I no longer take any pleasure in painting these sad subjects. . . . I cannot resist those thoughts—afflicting and serious—with which it is necessary to fill my spirit and heart in order to succeed with these subjects that are so sad and lugubrious. Please therefore don’t ask me to paint such a subject."

Related Works: A second, slightly smaller version of The Agony in the Garden (fig. 5) descended in the Barberini family from at least 1649. From 1623, Cassiano dal Pozzo had been the secretary of Cardinal Francesco Barberini (1597–1679), who shared his antiquarian interests. It is the only other universally accepted oil on copper by Poussin. Although considered contemporary with The Met’s version, it includes a significant number of changes that indicate it is a second treatment of the subject: Poussin has zoomed in and reduced the number of figures, he presents Christ not in profile but turned toward the viewer, the disciples have been redistributed, and the putti are more clearly aligned with signs of the Passion. Tiny figures in the landscape indicate the soldiers bearing torches, presumably led by Judas, the disciple who would betray Christ. Their provenance by the early nineteenth century seems distinguished by a list of paintings offered for sale from the collection of Nicolas Le Rouge to Noël Desenfans, who was then in charge of building the collection of Stanislaw II August, king of Poland. This manuscript, probably dated between 1793 and 1795, notes the inscription on the back of the copper panel (see Le Brun n.d. and details forthcoming in Rosenberg 2023). The purchase did not take place, and it was subsequently sold to John Trumbull, who accompanied the American Legation to Paris in the spring of 1795.

A third version (private collection), previously owned by Anthony Blunt, was executed on canvas and seems to have been left unfinished. Compositionally it is close to the Barberini version. It may have been simply another iteration in a different medium, or a middle step in developing the Barberini copper from The Met’s composition. The sequence and relationship between these three works as well as their early provenances are addressed in important forthcoming studies by Standring and Rosenberg.

Two drawings by Poussin are related to these compositions (Rosenberg and Prat 1994, nos. 64–65). A double-sided sheet in the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, shows Christ in profile on the recto with a pile of weighty apostles evocative of The Met’s painting; its verso shows Christ in full face, arms outstretched in the manner of the Barberini version. If the drawings are roughly of the same date, it seems possible to conjecture that Poussin was working through both compositional formats around the same time or in overlapping projects. A drawing in the Royal Collection Trust, Windsor Castle depicts the same subject, but is otherwise distinct from all three painted versions and may date from significantly later in Poussin’s career.

David Pullins 2021

Inscription: Signed and inscribed (on reverse): SALVATORIS IN HORTO GETSEMA / NI A NICOLAO POVSSIN COLORIBVS / EXPRESSA

Giovanni Stefano Roccatagliata, Rome (until d. 1652; inv., March 4, 1652, no. 17, as "un'oratione all'orto in rame con cornice nera"; bequeathed to dal Pozzo); Carlo Antonio dal Pozzo, Palazzo dal Pozzo, Rome (1652–d. 1689, inv., October 11, 1689; no. 274, as "un'Oratione all’horto in rame di grandezza di tela di testa con cornice d’ebano negra si crede di Posino"); his son, Gabriele dal Pozzo, Rome (1689–d. 1695; inv., March 5–7, 1695); his son, Cosimo Antonio dal Pozzo, Rome (1695–d. 1740; under guardianship of his mother, Anna Teresa Benzoni dal Pozzo, when Cosimo was a minor, 1695–1705; on deposit as collateral with his cousin, marchese Ottavio Rinaldo dal Bufalo, Palazzo del Bufalo, Rome, 1723–30; on deposit as collateral with principe Camillo Filippo Pamphilj, Palazzo Pamphilj, Rome, 1731–43); his daughter, Maria Laura Boccapaduli, Palazzo Boccapaduli, Rome (1743–d. 1771; inv., 1771, as "quadro in Ramo da tre e due rappresentante l’Orazione all’Orto di Nicolò Posino stimato Scudi mille, e seicento"); ?her son, Giuseppe Boccapaduli; baron Philippe Laurent de Joubert, Hôtel de Villemaré, Paris (until d. 1792; his estate sale, Paris, April 15, 1793, no. 31, as "Le Christ au Jardin des Olives," sold to Le Rouge); Nicolas Le Rouge, Paris (1793–95; sold to Trumbull); John Trumbull, London (1795–at least 1824; his sales, Christie's, London, February 18, 1797, no. 83, as "Christ in the Mount of Olives," for £260, bought in; Peter Coxe, London, June 12, 1812, no. 6, as "The Saviour on the Mount of Olives, in the Evening that he was betrayed," for £262.10, bought in; Stanley, London, May 6, 1824, no. 49, for £31, bought in); [Josiah Taylor, Pall Mall, London, by 1832–at least 1835; sales, Exeter Hall, London, April 11, 1832, no. 110, as "Christ on the Mount of Olives," bought in; Exeter Hall, May 9, 1832, no. 12, bought in; Phillips, London, July 28, 1832, no. 134, for £19.8, bought in; Exeter Hall, March 15, 1833, no. 168, for £15.15, bought in; Exeter Hall, May 7, 1833, no. 58, bought in; Christie’s, London, May 2, 1835, no. 32, as "Christ in the garden, with angels administering, and the disciples sleeping in the foreground," for £.9]; private collection, London (by 1985; sold to Wildenstein); [Wildenstein, New York, 1989–99; sold to Salander-O'Reilly]; [Salander-O'Reilly Galleries, 1999; by exchange to Landau]; Jon and Barbara Landau, Purchase, N.Y. (1999–2021)

Rome. S. Salvatore in Lauro. 1715, no catalogue [see Ghezzi 1715].

Tokyo. Wildenstein. "Masterpieces of European Paintings," May 18, 1992–June 19, 1992, no. 1.

London. Dulwich Picture Gallery. "Early Poussin Reconsidered," February 16–April 30, 1995, unnumbered cat. (lent by a private collection).

Paris. Musée du Louvre. "Poussin et Dieu," March 30–June 29, 2015, no. 5 (lent by a private collection).

Inventory of Giovanni Stefano Roccatagliata. March 4, 1652, fol. 161v, no. 17 [Archivio di Stato, Rome, 30 notai, uff. 25, b. 257, not. Vipera; published in Cavazzini 2013, p. 814], as "un'oratione all'orto in rame con cornice nera".

Joachim von Sandrart. Teutsche Academie der Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey Künste. Vol. 1, Nuremberg, 1675, part 2, p. 368, as "Christus im Oelgarten von dem Engel gestärket".

Nicodemus Tessin the Younger. Travel Notes. 1687–88 [p. 89; published in "Nicodemus Tessin the Younger: Sources Works Collections, Travel Notes 1673–77 and 1687–88," eds. Merit Laine and Börje Magnusson, Stockholm, 2002, p. 330], as "Christo im Öhlgarten" in the "Palazzo del Cav: del Pozzo".

Robert de Cotte. Mémoire des tableaux qui sont dans la maison du chevalier du Puis [dal Pozzo]. [ca. 1689] [Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms. Fr 9447, fol. 201–13; first chapter published by Philippe de Chennevières-Pointel, in "Recherches sur la vie et les ouvrages de quelques peintres provinciaux de l'ancienne France," Paris, vol. 3, 1854, p. 153], lists among the works by Poussin in the dal Pozzo collection "un Criste au jardin des Olives".

Inventory of Carlo Antonio dal Pozzo. October 11, 1689, fol. 221v, no. 274 [Archivio di Stato, Rome, 30 Notai Capitolini, uff. 25, vol. 419; published in Donatella L. Sparti, "The dal Pozzo Collection again: The Inventories of 1689 and 1695 and the Family Archive" in Burlington Magazine, 132 (August 1990), p. 558], as "Un'Oratione all'horto in rame di grandezza di tela di testa con cornice d'ebano negra di crede di Posino".

Giuseppe Ghezzi. [Notes on the exhibition at S. Salvatore in Lauro]. 1715, pp. 205r, 211 v. [published in Giulia de Marchi, "Miscellanea della Società Romana di Storia Patria," vol. 27: "Mostre di quadri a S. Salvatore in Lauro (1682–1725)," Rome, 1987, pp. 303, 309], lists it among works lent by Cosimo Antonio dal Pozzo to the exhibition of 1715 at S. Salvatore in Lauro as "L'Orazione all'orto, in rame".

Nicolas Wleughels. Letter to the duc d'Antin. September 8, 1729 [published in Anatole de Montaiglon and Jules Guiffrey, "Correspondance des directeurs de l'Académie de France à Rome," Paris, vol. 8, 1898, p. 48], informs the duke that there is another painting by Poussin in the marchesa dal Bufalo's collection.

Nicolas Wleughels. Letter to the duc d'Antin. September 14, 1729 [published in Anatole de Montaiglon and Jules Guiffrey, "Correspondance des directeurs de l'Académie de France à Rome," Paris, vol. 8, 1898, p. 51], as "N.S. au jardin des Olives"; describes the dal Pozzo picture from the previous letter; reports that the marchesa falsely informed him that the picture belonged to her and not her husband.

Jean-Baptiste Pierre Le Brun. Catalogue d’une collection précieuse de tableaux des trois écoles, provenants des plus belles et anciennes collections qu’il y ait eu en France, appartenant au citoyen Viller . . . [ca. 1793–95] [catalogued in Desenfans and Bourgeois Papers 1787–1810; Dulwich College Archive MS XVI 37v–38r], as "une riche composition de 26 figures"; transcribes the inscription on the reverse.

A.R. Peltzer, ed. Joachim von Sandrart's Academie der Bau-, Bild- und Mahlerey- Künste von 1675. Munich, 1925, p. 411 n. 1122.

Anthony Blunt. The French Drawings in the Collection of His Majesty the King at Windsor Castle. Oxford, 1945, p. 40, tentatively connects it to a drawing at Windsor Castle executed in the mid-1630s.

Francis Haskell and Sheila Rinehart. "The Dal Pozzo Collection, Some New Evidence: Part 1." Burlington Magazine 102 (July 1960), pp. 321, 324–25, reprints in full de Cotte's (unnumbered) and Ghezzi's (no. 49) accounts of the dal Pozzo Collection.

Anthony Blunt. "Poussin and His Roman Patrons." Walter Friedlaender zum 90. Geburtstag. Berlin, 1965, appendix II, p. 73, refers to it as the "lost Pozzo painting"; relates it to a painting of the same subject he has recently acquired; states that it has "rightly" been connected with the Windsor drawing.

Anthony Blunt. The Paintings of Nicolas Poussin: A Critical Catalogue. [London], 1966, p. 160, no. L30, states that it is "no doubt" based on the Windsor drawing.

Doris Wild. "Charles Mellin ou Nicolas Poussin." Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 6th ser., 69 (January 1967), pp. 17–18, proposes that the drawing at Windsor is by Charles Mellin.

Frances Vivian. "Poussin and Claude Seen from the Archivio Barberini." Burlington Magazine 111 (December 1969), pp. 723–24, posits that the "still lost" dal Pozzo copper was probably commissioned by Cassiano dal Pozzo in the 1630s; gives the provenance of the painting from Cassiano dal Pozzo to Maria Laura Boccapaduli; says that it could be identified with the work sold in the Trumbull sale of June 12, 1812; calls the Barberini version a later copy and describes the Blunt version as "Poussinesque".

Arnauld Brejon de Lavergnée. "Tableaux de Poussin et d'autres artistes français dans la collection Dal Pozzo: Deux inventaires inédits." Revue de l'art no. 19 (1973), pp. 81–82, 85, 92, publishes Carlo Antonio dal Pozzo's inventory of 1689, in which the picture is listed as no. 26: "Un'oratione all'horto in rame di grandezza di tela di testa con corn.e d'ebano negra si crede di Posino".

Jacques Thuillier. L'opera completa di Poussin. Milan, 1974, p. 95, no. 79, as "L'Orto degli Olivi"; dates it to 1630–35 based on the drawings at Windsor and the Hermitage.

Doris Wild. Nicolas Poussin: Leben, Werk, Exkurse. Zürich, 1980, p. 213, under no. M13.

Christopher Wright. Poussin Paintings: A Catalogue Raisonné. New York, 1985, p. 248, no. L13, as "Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane"; attributes Blunt's canvas to a painter close to Poussin.

T.J. Standring. "A Lost Poussin Work on Copper: 'The Agony in the Garden'." Burlington Magazine 127 (September 1985), pp. 615–17, figs. 61 (color), 62 (inscription on reverse), reports on its discovery in a private collection and tentatively identifies it as the dal Pozzo version of the subject; disagrees with Vivian (1969) that the Barberini version is a copy and deems it plausible that Poussin would have executed two versions on copper for these two important Roman patrons; relates it to the Blunt canvas, the sketch in the Hermitage, and other early works by Poussin that date 1626–27; dates it about 1624–27.

Denis Mahon. "Letter: Poussin in the Dal Pozzo Collection." Burlington Magazine 127 (December 1985), p. 900, supports Standring's hypothesis that the lost copper has dal Pozzo provenance by pointing to the inscription on the reverse, stating that it could "only have been painted on it when the picture was in the dal Pozzo collection" due to several examples of similar inscriptions on the reverses of paintings proven to be from the dal Pozzo collection.

Konrad Oberhuber. Poussin: The Early Years in Rome. Exh. cat., Kimbell Art Museum. New York, 1988, pp. 137, 270–71, no. 39, ill. pp. 139, 270, as "Christ on the Mount of Olives"; points to Guido Reni's interpretation of the subject as Poussin's compositional inspiration and Raphael's Loggie as his classical inspiration.

Timothy J. Standring. "Some Pictures by Poussin in the Dal Pozzo Collection: Three New Inventories." Burlington Magazine 130 (August 1988), pp. 608 n. 2, p. 609 n. 13, pp. 610, 613 n. 32, p. 622.

Alain Mérot. Nicolas Poussin. New York, 1990, p. 265, no. 77, ill., as "Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane"; erroneously describes support as canvas.

Hugh Brigstocke. A Loan Exhibition of Drawings by Nicolas Poussin from British Collections. Exh. cat., Ashmolean Museum. Oxford, 1990, unpaginated, under no. 15, proposes that the dal Pozzo and Barberini paintings are roughly contemporaneous and can be dated to about 1627; relates the dal Pozzo picture to the recto of the Hermitage drawing and the Barberini picture to the verso; notes that the Windsor drawing relates to neither version but could be seen as an intermediate step between the two or executed later than both of them, possibly representing "further refinement of the artist's ideas".

Donatella L. Sparti. Le collezioni dal Pozzo: storia di una famiglia e del suo museo nella Roma seicentesca. Modena, 1992, p. 18 n. 17, pp. 151–52 n. 29, pp. 153, 157, 176, 187, no. 274, discusses the agreement between Cosimo Antonio dal Pozzo and marchese Ottavio Rinaldo dal Bufalo.

Masterpieces of European Paintings. Exh. cat., Wildenstein, Tokyo. Toyko, 1992, unpaginated, no. 1, ill. (black and white and color), lists the provenance subsequent to Maria Laura Boccapaduli's ownership as her son, Giuseppe Boccapaduli (decesased 1809), his brother; Luigi Boccapaduli, private collection, Belgium; states that earlier claims of the Barberini version being a copy are probably incorrect.

Hugh Brigstocke. "Poussin Revealed." Sotheby's Preview (July 1993), p. 10.

Jacques Thuillier. Nicolas Poussin. Paris, 1994, pp. 245, 252, no. 27, ill., as "Le Jardin des Oliviers"; dates it to 1624–25.

Pierre Rosenberg and Louis-Antoine Prat. Nicolas Poussin, 1594–1665: Catalogue raisonné des dessins. Milan, 1994, pp. 116, 118, fig. 64a, as "Christ au jardin des Oliviers"; dates both versions of the painting and the Windsor drawing to 1630.

Martin Clayton. Poussin, Works on Paper: Drawings from the Collection of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Exh. cat., Dulwich Picture Gallery. London, 1995, p. 116, under no. 40, argues that the Windsor drawing relates to both copper versions of the subject "only generically"; dates the drawing to 1636–38.

Pierre Rosenberg and Louis-Antoine Prat. "Review of Clayton 1995." Burlington Magazine 137 (October 1995), pp. 690–91, think that Clayton's proposed date of the Windsor drawing is too late.

Denis Mahon. Early Poussin Reconsidered. Exh. cat., Dulwich Picture Gallery. London, 1995, unpaginated, ill. (overall and inscription on reverse), notes that this exhibition is the first time the painting has been publicly shown in Europe; argues that the drawings in the Hermitage and Windsor are part of the "same creative process which culminated in the two painted versions for Dal Pozzo and Barberini".

Maurizio Fagiolo dell'Arco. "'Sacrum Antiquo Roman More Le Maire Pinxit': Un nuovo quadro di casa Dal Pozzo." Commentari d'arte 1 (September–December 1995), pp. 59–60, 61 n. 25, figs. 18–19 (overall and inscription on reverse), identifies it with "Un'Orathione all'Horto in rame" in Giovanni Stefano Roccatagliata's inventory (1652); states that the inscription likely does not date from the time of Cassiano or Carlo Antonio dal Pozzo since there is no mention of it in the inventory, whereas similar inscriptions on the reverses of other paintings are noted.

Hugh Brigstocke in The Dictionary of Art. Ed. Jane Turner. Vol. 25, New York, 1996, pp. 395–96, dates it about 1627–30.

Hugh Brigstocke. "Variantes, copies et imitations. Quelques réflexions sur les méthodes de travail de Poussin." Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665): Actes du colloque organizé au musée du Louvre par le Service Culturel du 19 au 21 octobre 1994. Ed. Alain Mérot. Paris, 1996, vol. 1, pp. 216–19, 221 n. 20, fig. 8, dates it about 1627.

Maurizio Fagiolo dell'Arco. Jean Lemaire, pittore "antiquario". Rome, 1996, pp. 29, 149, figs. 9.23–9.24 (overall and inscription on reverse), dates it as contemporaneous with "The Martyrdom of Saint Erasmus" (Pinacoteca Vaticana, 1628–29); as the work in the Roccatagliata inventory.

Denis Mahon in Nicolas Poussin: I primi anni romani. Exh. cat., Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome. Milan, 1998, pp. 21, 31–32 nn. 43–44, figs. 12–13 (overall and inscription on reverse), states that it was painted for Roccatagliata in 1626 and bequeathed to Carlo Antonio dal Pozzo upon his death in 1652; posits that the Barberini version was executed shortly after the dal Pozzo version; notes that the painting could not be lent to the exhibition.

Olivier Bonfait. "Poussin aujourd'hui." Revue de l'art no. 119 (1998), pp. 63–64, 73 nn. 25, 46, as "Christ au jardin des oliviers"; dates it 1627–30.

Hugh Brigstocke. "'Apollo e Marsia'." Quadri & sculture 6 (November–December 1998), p. 33.

Denis Mahon. Nicolas Poussin: Works from His First Years in Rome. Jerusalem, 1999, pp. 27–28, figs. 17 (color), 18 (inscription on reverse) [revision of 1998 Italian exh. cat., Nicolas Poussin: I primi anni Romani].

Pierre Rosenberg. "Rome: Poussin's Roman Beginnings." Burlington Magazine 141 (March 1999), p. 193 n. 6.

Important Old Master Paintings. Sotheby's, New York. January 28, 1999, pp. 130, 132–135, under no. 277, dates it slightly earlier than the Barberini version, which is dated to 1627–28; notes that Poussin's involvement with Cassiano dal Pozzo and Francesco Barberini was "intense" during this time period and implies "a bond of friendship" rather than "collector's rivalry"; describes it as "stricter in composition, with more figures and groups of figures parallel to the picture plane with a generally monochromatic palette" as compared to the Barberini version; notes that the stylistic and iconographic differences between the two paintings make clear that the Barberini version followed the dal Pozzo version "if only by the shortest of durations"; proposes that the Hermitage drawing may have served as a study for both versions of the painting and that the Windsor drawing was executed independently of the paintings.

Pierre Rosenberg. "Poussin, sì e no." Quadri & sculture 8 (2000), p. 25 n. 6.

Timothy James Standring. "Sulle tracce di Poussin." Quadri & sculture 8 (2000), p. 10, fig. 40, dates it about 1629.

Timothy J. Standring in I segreti di un collezionista: Le straordinarie raccolte di Cassiano dal Pozzo 1588–1657. Ed. Francesco Solinas. Exh. cat., Galleria nazionale d'arte antica, Palazzo Barberini. Rome, 2000, p. 200.

Patrizia Cavazzini. "Nicolas Poussin, Cassiano dal Pozzo, and the Roman Art Market in the 1620s." Burlington Magazine 155 (December 2013), pp. 811, 814, erroneously as in a private collection, London; publishes Giovanni Stefano Roccatagliata's inventory of 1652, in which the picture is listed as no. 17.

Ann Sutherland Harris. "An Unpublished Study for Nicolas Poussin’s Second 'Sacrament of Extreme Unction'." Master Drawings 51 (Spring 2013), pp. 41, 47 n. 10.

Stefan Albl. "Poussins Freunde: Pietro Testa und Karel Philips Spierincks." Frühneuzeit-Info 24 (2013), p. 41 n. 52, as "Christus in Ölberg".

Louis-Antoine Prat. Le dessin français au XVIIe siècle. Paris, 2013, pp. 30–31, as "Christ au jardin des Oliviers".

Nicolas Milovanovic in Louvre Editions. Poussin et Dieu. Ed. Nicolas Milovanovic and Mickaël Szanto. Exh. cat., Musée du Louvre. Paris, 2015, pp. 152, 167–69, 172, no. 5, ill. p. 170 (color), as "Le Christ au jardin des Oliviers"; dates it about 1628; rejects the Roccatagliata provenance; thinks it is more plausible that the Barberini version of the painting was sold by John Trumbull in the nineteenth-century sales culminating on July 27, 1832; relates the pose of Christ to an engraving by Agostino Carracci of the same subject in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

Pierre Rosenberg. "Review of Paris 2015." Burlington Magazine 157 (August 2015), pp. 561–62, fig. 44 (color), as "Christ on the Mount of Olives".

Sarah Bakkali. "The Trumbull Sale of 1797: Players in the Paris–London Art Market During the French Revolution." London and the Emergence of a European Art Market, 1780–1820. Ed. Susanna Avery-Quash and Christian Huemer. Los Angeles, 2019, pp. 164, 167, 169, assigns the Le Rouge and Trumbull provenance to the Barberini version of the subject.

Paolo Coen in "Brownlow Cecil, Ninth Earl of Exeter, Thomas Jenkins, and Nicolas Mosman: Origins, Functions, and Aesthetic Guidelines of a Great Drawing Collection in Eighteenth-Century Rome, Now at the British Museum." The Art Market in Rome in the Eighteenth Century: A Study in the Social History of Art. Ed. Paolo Coen. Leiden, 2019, p. 175 n. 96.

David Pullins in "Recent Acquisitions, A Selection: 2020–2022." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 80 (Fall 2022), p. 29, ill. (color).

Maximilíano Durón. "Met Museum Receives Rare Poussin Painting from Top Collectors." Art News (January 20, 2022), ill. (color, overall and reverse) [https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/metropolitan-museum-poussin-painting-barbara-jon-landau-donation-1234616202/].

Didier Rykner. "Un nouveau tableau de Poussin pour le Metropolitan Museum." Tribune de l'art (January 20, 2022), ill. (color) [http://www.latribunedelart.com/un-nouveau-tableau-de-poussin-pour-le-metropolitan-museum].

Julian Bell. "A Kinetic Endlessness." New York Review of Books 69 (February 24, 2022), p. 8.