The paintings on display in this room acquaint the viewer with many aspects of the work of the prominent French artist Sébastien Bourdon (1616-1671), who was one of the founders of the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris (1648).
Jacob Burying Laban's Images (1637) is one of a series of compositions by the artist based on a story from the Bible: before following God’s command to leave for Bethel, Jacob “hid the foreign gods under the oak that was near Shechem”. The work’s alternation of spatial planes and orderly placement of groups of figures is reminiscent of the influence of Poussin’s influence on Bourdon’s style.
Augustus before the Tomb of Alexander (1642-1652) depicts an event recorded by the Roman writer and the historian Suetonius (approx. 70-140) in his work The Lives of the Twelve Caesars. During the military campaign in Egypt, the Roman Emperor Octavian Augustus, upon visiting the grave of the legendary general, “viewed the body of Alexander the Great… As a sign of homage he placed a golden crown on his head and sprinkled flowers over his body.” The scene captured here by the artist was most likely meant to allude to the victories of King Louis XIV, as such parallels were characteristic of official art of that time.
The painting Massacre of the Innocents (approx. 1650) was based on a story from the Book of Matthew: King Irod, intending to kill the infant Christ, “...sent his men to kill all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under”. The strict equilibrium of the composition as well as the precision of the form shows the influence of Poussin, while the violent motion and the emphasized pathos in the conveyed emotions possibly draw inspiration from the work of Charles le Brun.
Venus and Aeneas was heavily influenced by the paintings of Poussin, who Burdon met during his time in Rome from 1636-1637. The scene was inspired by the The Aeneid by the ancient Roman poet Virgil (70 B.C.E. - 19 B.C.E.). Descending on a cloud, the goddess of beauty Venus - according to Greco-Roman mythology, the mother of Aeneas, the hero of the Trojan War - “embraced her beloved son / And placed before him a set of shining armor”, forged by the blacksmith god Vulcan.
Jacob Burying Laban's Images (1638-1642) is another work based on the same subject matter which the artist returned to multiple times, possibly because, as a Hugenot (a French Protestant), he understood particularly well the desire to detach himself from false idols. The figure on the left-hand edge of the painting is most likely a depiction of the artist himself.
The light, lively style and the finely developed colors of Death of Dido (1644) speak to the artist’s familiarity with Venecian art. In depicting the death of the queen of Carthage, Burdon followed the narrative from Virgil’s The Aeneid. Having left Troy in flames and embarking on his journey, Aeneas appeared before Dido who in turn fell in love with the wanderer. When the gods bade him to leave her, she committed suicide: “...[Dido] climbs the high pyre in a frenzy and unsheathes the Dardan sword…” Cutting off a lock of Dido’s hair, the rainbow goddess Iris saved her soul.
