# The Martyrdom of St Erasmus [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [POUSSIN, Nicolas]() - Date: 1601-1650 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 320 x 186 cm ## Commentary As soon as the Germanicus was completed, an even more important commission was received, this time for the Basilica of St Peter's. It was for a large altarpiece depicting the Martyrdom of St Erasmus. The picture was not a success and, with the exception of the Virgin with St James \(Louvre, Paris\) which was probably painted for a church in Valenciennes, Poussin painted only one more large altarpiece for a prominent position. The Erasmus is nevertheless important in several ways: it shows Poussin's temporary preoccupation with the Caravaggesque idiom and also his weaknesses as a composer of large altarpieces, demonstrating that he was temperamentally unsuited to the painting of a single picture on a grand scale. Almost all the greatest pictures of his maturity form part of a pair or a series: the first set of Sacraments, the Seasons, and the Crossing of the Red Sea paired with the Adoration of the Golden Calf. ## Related artworks - [A Bacchic Scene]() - [A Dance to the Music of Time]() - [A Roman Road]() - [A Sacrifice]() - [Acis and Galatea]() - [Adoration of the Magi]() - [Annunciation]() - [Apollo and Daphne]() - [Apollo and Daphne]() - [Apollo and the Muses \(Parnassus\)]() - [Armida Carrying off Rinaldo]() - [Assumption of the Virgin]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()