Note 289 — APPENDIX.

Poussin writes to M. de Chanteloup, April 25, 1644 (Lettres de Poussin, Paris, 1824), "I am working briskly at the Extreme Unction, which is indeed a subject worthy of Apelles, who was very fond of representing the dying." He adds, with a vivacity which seems to indicate that he took a particular fancy to this painting, "I do not intend to quit it whilst I feel thus well-disposed, until I have put it in fair train for a sketch. It is to contain seventeen figures of men, women, and children, young and old, one part of whom are drowned in tears, whilst the others pray for the dying. I will not describe it to you more in detail. In this, my clumsy pen is quite unfit, it requires a gilded and well-set pencil. The principal figures are two feet high; the painting will be about the size of your Manne, but of better proportion." Félibien, a friend and confidant of Poussin, likewise remarks (Entretiens, etc., part iv., p. 293), that the Extreme Unction was one of the paintings which pleased him most. We learn at length, from Poussin's letters, that he finished it and sent it into France in this same year, 1644. Fénoien informs us that in 1646 he completed the Confirmation, in 1647 the Baptism, the Penance, the Ordination and the Eucharist, and that he sent the last sacrament, that of Marriage, at the commencement of the year 1648. Bellori (le Vite de Pittori, etc., Rome, 1672) gives a full and detailed description of the Extreme Unction; and, as he lived with Poussin, it seems credible that his explanations are for the most part those he had himself received from the great artist.