Joshua’s Victory over the Amelekites

Featuring two fighting horsemen at its centre, this depiction of a battle scene covers the entire sheet. A mountain range is visible on the horizon, and a river god is shown on the bottom left. A preliminary sketch was made in red chalk, over which the artist used a pen to draw uneven, though gently curved lines in brown ink, forming the contours of the human figures, horses, and mountains. Large sections of the work were then given a light brown ink wash, producing new figurations that sweep over the outlines of the figures, imbuing the scene with fluidity and movement. The dark brown ink serves to make the horsemen on the left-hand side of the central group, the soldier lying on the ground, and the river god stand out from the remaining figures. These dark touches of colour lend greater depth to the picture. Finally, Poussin used a darker-hued red chalk to add bleeding wounds to the soldiers’ bodies.