Midas Washing at the Source of the Pactolus, c.1627 Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665)

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We will add 1.6" (4 cm) additional blank canvas all over the painting for stretching.

High quality and detailing in every inch are time consuming. The reproduction of Nicolas Poussin also needs time to dry in order to be completely ready for shipping, as this is crucial to not be damaged during transportation.
Based on the size, level of detail and complexity we need 8-9 weeks to complete the process.

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We not stretch and frame our oil paintings due to several reasons:
Painting reproduction is a high quality expensive product, which we cannot risk to damage by sending it being stretched.
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In the half‑lit recess of a wooded grotto, Nicolas Poussin sets a drama of disillusion and redemption. A broad‑backed river god reclines in monumental ease, his ivy crown glinting softly, while the humbled King Midas kneels just behind, dipping his hands into the thin silver vein that springs from the rock. Two playful putti hover at the stream’s source, their clay jugs directing our gaze to the life‑giving water and, by extension, to Bacchus, invisible yet tacitly present. A discarded crimson cloak, slung over the tree at left, is the lone note of courtly splendour in a scene otherwise stripped to elemental nature.
The palette is restrained and autumnal—burnished umbers, olive greens, and dulled golds dominate—punctuated by that single shard of red. Poussin bathes flesh and foliage alike in a tawny, crepuscular light, so that bodies and boulders share a common tonality. Gold, the very substance of Midas’s folly, appears only as a subtle glimmer in the ivy leaves and in the warm reflection along the rock face, an irony quietly embedded in the chromatic scheme.
Executed in oil on a modest canvas, the painting still bears traces of the youthful Poussin’s brisk, porous brushwork before his later classicising severity took hold. Skins are modelled with sfumato transitions, yet the tree’s bark and rocky overhang are laid in with a more tactile, almost impasto touch. The water itself is rendered in swift, translucent strokes that catch the light, conveying both liquidity and urgency.
Compositionally, the scene is an object lesson in controlled movement. The diagonal of the stream slices the foreground, mirrored by the opposing slope of the river god’s torso, creating a quiet X that anchors the eye. A serpentine line then loops from the putto’s upraised jug, across the green drapery, and into the crook of Midas’s bent arm, only to rise again into the massive tree trunk—a circuit that keeps the viewer oscillating between human frailty and immutable nature.
Painted soon after Poussin’s arrival in Rome around 1627, the work discloses his studious engagement with antique sculpture and the nascent Baroque’s interest in narrative clarity. Yet its moral undertone—riches transmuted into sterility, hubris tempered by ritual cleansing—speaks equally to Counter‑Reformation concerns with repentance and grace. That such weighty themes are conveyed through a landscape of measured stillness rather than theatrical flourish signals Poussin’s emerging voice: philosophical, restrained, and deeply indebted to classical precedent.
What lingers is the paradox of plenty and privation: gold rendered invisible, salvation found in water, power surrendered to the patient flow of time. The painting invites a slow, almost meditative looking—an apt antidote to Midas’s haste, and perhaps to our own.