The painting, which was executed for a silk and brocade manufacturer from Lyons, formed the subject of a lecture at the Academic Royale in Paris in 1668, when the painter Sebastien Bourdon argued that Poussin had here treated the essential aspects of painting light, composition, proportion, colour and harmony in an exemplary manner and had fused them into a perfect whole, and concluded that Poussin's art should be considered the supreme example for all artists.
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