In The Famous Conde Museum Will Show “Beating The Babies”

The famous Conde Museum in Chantilly Castle near Paris, which is the second most important after the Louvre collection of old masters in France, announced a new exhibition “Beating babies. Poussin, Picasso, Bacon”. At the exhibition, which will be opened on September 11, the focus will be the famous masterpiece of Nicolas Poussin “Beating the Babies”, and surround him, for the first time in the history of the museum, the work of modernists and contemporary artists.

The creepy plot of Poussin’s canvas about King Herod of the New Testament, who ordered the killing of all babies in Bethlehem in order to remain in power, inspired not only the painters of the 17th century, but also subsequent generations of artists. This idea formed the basis of the exhibition, the chronology of which begins from 1628, the time of the creation the picture by Poussin.

The work, which aroused the shock and admiration of contemporaries, was repeatedly copied, including another great Frenchman Jean Honoré Fragonard. And then during the XVIII-XX centuries, artists such as Jean-Baptiste-Marie Pierre, Leon Cogne, Pablo Picasso, Francis Bacon, Jean-Michel Alberola, Annette Messager, and many others did not give rest. These their works will complement the exposition, along with the earlier version of the same “Beating the Babies” from the collection of the Parisian Petite Palais, as well as the preparatory drawings of Poussin.