© National Museum Cardiff
Nadar collection; Mrs Cowden, New York; Rolan, Browse & Delbanco, London; Sir James Colyer-Fergusson, 1970.
Nineteen of Nicolas Poussin's paintings take Moses as their subject. The Finding of Moses from 1651 is distinguished not only by the animated detail of the foreground scene, but also by the accuracy of the archaeological background.
A late still life, Picasso's Nature Morte aux Poron reworks the classic genre as an exercise in Cubist angularity. While the palette reflects the artist's post-war shift away from darker colours in favour of brighter, lighter shades, the objects themselves are long-established symbols in the artist's artistic vocabulary.
