Nicolas Poussin's 'Extreme Unction'

An opportunity to see a masterpiece by one of the greatest French artists of the seventeenth century, Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) in a special display at the Walker Art Gallery.

'Extreme Unction' was painted in the late 1630s as part of a series of seven canvases illustrating the 'Seven Sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church', as they might have occurred during the early history of the Church.

The painting will be shown alongside two landscapes by Poussin from the Walker Art Gallery's collections.

This display will reveal Poussin’s working methods, examine his popularity in eighteenth-century England and compares his treatment of this sombre and solemn ritual of the final anointing of a dying man, with the two landscapes from the Walker.

'Extreme Unction' was recently bought for the nation by the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.