The Duke of Bourgogne’s painting lesson

Anne-Marie Lecoq – Published by Le Passage Editions, 2003

Fénelon, Poussin and the lost childhood

From 1689 to 1697, Fénelon was responsible for the education of the Duke of Bourgogne, grandson of Louis XIV, who was seemingly destined to one day sit on the throne of France.

In order to give his student some basics in how to analyse a painting and judge the success of a painter, the tutor had chosen two works by Nicolas Poussin, Landscape with the funeral of Phocion and Landscape with a man killed by a snake, and imagined that Poussin was describing them himself, in another world…