The Conquest of Jerusalem by Emperor Titus

During the Jewish revolt against Rome (66 – 70 AD), which went down inhistory as the Jewish War, Flavius Josephus initially served as military commander of Galilee before being captured in 67 AD and changing sides. As advisor to the Roman troops during the siege of Jerusalem (70 AD), he tried in vain to prevent the plundering and destruction of the Temple. Even Titus, the Roman commander and son of the emperor, could not stop his troops from doing so. Flavius Josephus later (75 – 79 AD) wrote a seven-volume history of the Jewish War (De bello Judaico) on which this depiction is based. Poussin came to Rome in 1624, and only a short stay in Paris (1640–1642) was to interrupt his Roman career. As a friend of his successful fellow-painter Claude Lorrain and a protégé of Pope Urban VIII and the cultured members of the papal court, Poussin became one of Rome’s most prominent painters. His frequently documented interest in the art of antiquity gave his works a classical touch, which manifests itself in the present painting in its relief-like composition and plain coloration. The chaotic action appears well-organised, with the bodies precisely laid out on the canvas, and the mighty columns of the temple and the rigid figures in the foreground providing a counterweight to the battlefield tumult. The picture was created on a commission from Cardinal Francesco Barberini and presented by an imperial envoy to Emperor Ferdinand III as a gift from the Pope in 1639. It remains uncertain what the Pope hoped to achieve in choosing the subject: was it an admonishing reminder of the conquest and plundering of Mantua by imperial troops in 1627? Or was it late praise? Ferdinand had won a decisive victory over the Protestants at the Battle of Nördlingen in 1634. © Cäcilia Bischoff, Masterpieces of the Picture Gallery. A Brief Guide to the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna 2010