Gaspar, whose real name was Dughet, was born at Rome in 1613. His father, who was French, had settled in Rome sometime before his birth, and Nicolas Poussin having married his sister, he acquired the appellation by which he is ordinarily known. He studied under his brother-in-law, by whose advice he adopted landscape-painting, in which he attained to a great celebrity. His passion for grace and beauty was extreme: he selected in all his pieces the most enchanting views of nature, and "in the opinion of many," says Lanzi, "there is not a greater name among landscape-painters." He is said to have acquired singular facility; and, like Rosa, could finish a landscape and decorate it with figures in a day. He painted all sorts of landscapes, and in everything he did, he displays elegance and erudition. Nicholas Poussin occasionally embellished Gaspar's pictures with figures representative of some portion of history or of fable. Gaspar has left behind him a few masterly etchings, consisting of four circular landscapes and a set of four landscapes lengthways. He died at Rome in 1675. A considerable number of pieces from this excellent artist's pencil are to be seen in the National Gallery, London.

Nicolas, a celebrated painter, called the "Raphael of France," was born at Andely in Normandy, on July 19, 1594. He was sprung from a noble but very poor family, who had been much reduced by the part they had taken in the civil wars. Having obtained his father's consent to become a painter, and having made a beginning in his native village, he, at the age of eighteen, visited Paris, where he placed himself under the instruction of Ferdinand Elle, a Flemish portrait-painter. He did not remain long with Elle, but applied himself to composition from casts and prints after Raffaelle and Giulio Romano. Some of his earliest attempts were the paintings in the church of the Capuchins at Blois, and some Bacchanalian pieces for the Chateau of Chiverney. He was now invited to Rome by Marino, the Italian poet, whom he met at Paris; but the "Death of the Virgin," a painting on which he was then engaged, compelled him to decline. He was enabled, however, to undertake the journey in 1624, when his friend received him with great kindness. Marino soon after died, and Poussin was for some time reduced to paint for almost nothing. He lodged with the eminent sculptor, Francis du Quesnoy, called "Il Flamingo," and studied the works of Raffaelle with untiring devotion. Cardinal Barberini returning to Rome, to whom he had been introduced by Marino, liberally patronized him. He painted for him his celebrated pictures of the "Death of Germanicus" and the "Taking of Jerusalem by the Emperor Titus;" and he procured for him a commission to paint the "Martyrdom of St. Erasmus" for St. Peter's. The first series of his "Seven Sacraments of the Church of Rome" were painted for the Cavaliere del Pozzo, and are now in the collection of the Duke of Rutland. He subsequently painted another set of "Sacraments," which were purchased by the Duke of Bridgewater for 4000 guineas, and now occupy a place in the gallery of the Earl of Ellesmere. On his return to France in 1639, at the request of Louis XIII., he was made painter to the king, with apartments in the Tuileries. Here he produced his admirable work of the "Last Supper," and was engaged to decorate the gallery of the Louvre, when the criticisms of his brother artists determined him to return to Rome. He quitted France for ever in 1642, and after many years spent in the diligent practice of his art, he died on November 19, 1665.

Eight of his pictures are in the National Gallery—The Nursing of Bacchus;" "A Bacchanalian Festival;" "A Bacchanalian Dance;" "Phineas and his followers turned into stone at the sight of the Gorgon's head;" "Cephalus and Aurora;" "Venus Sleeping surprised by Satyrs;" "Phocion: a Landscape with Figures;" "The Plague among the Phillistines at Ashdod." (Memoirs of Nicolas Poussin, by Maria Graham, 8vo, London, 1820.)