Next week, the treasures of the Fitzwilliam Museum will be celebrated at Love Art After Dark. However, with a little help, next year’s guests will be able to enjoy yet another masterpiece: in August, the Fitzwilliam Museum launched an appeal to raise 3.9 million pounds to purchase ‘Extreme Unction’, by Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665). Despite the fact that the picture has been valued at around 14 million pounds, it has been offered to the Fitzwilliam for under a third of its value through the Government’sAcceptance in Lieu of Tax scheme. Although 10% was pledged at the beginning of the campaign, the Museum needs our help, and time is running out. Despite coverage in the national press, my very unscientific study suggested that few students in Cambridge itself were aware of the appeal. So why should you care? My reasons are both unimaginative and unoriginal: the picture is of such quality and significance that it would be a significant asset to Cambridge.

Executed in Rome at the height of Poussin’s career, 'Extreme Unction' (or ‘Final Anointing’) was originally part of a cycle depicting the seven sacraments of the early Church painted for the renowned connoisseur Cassiano dal Pozzo (1588-1657) between circa 1638 and 1640. The oil is administered to the left eye of the dying man, while distraught figures keep vigil around his bed. Poussin’s ability to compose pictures is immediately apparent. Every figure plays a role in conveying the solemnity of the occasion. The characters are so carefully disposed within the box-like room that one senses that an omission of any sort would ruin the unity of the whole. Similar care has been taken over the choice of colours. Particularly impressive is how the green sheet which covers the dying man’s legs somehow reflects the pink ochre and blue draperies that surround it. As the viewer moves closer to the picture the visual experience becomes increasingly sensual; forms fragment into patches of localised colour formed by Poussin’s characteristically fluid marks. It is a testament to Poussin’s abilities as a painter that sumptuousness can be enjoyed alongside, as opposed to contradicting, the melancholic subject matter of the picture. 

In addition to its purely visual appeal, the picture is also one of great art historical importance; Jacques-Louis David’s ‘Death of Socrates’ demonstrates its influence on later artists. If the Fitzwilliam’s campaign is successful it would be one the most important acquisitions the Museum has made in the last century, transforming their collection of seventeenth century French painting. The Museum would be able to boast yet another work by an ‘Old Master’: it is a sad fact that British collections rarely have the financial reserves to buy pictures on the open market. Increasingly our galleries rely on generosity. The National Gallery and the National Gallery of Scotland successfully purchased two pictures by Titian, ‘Diana and Actaeon’ and ‘Diana and Callisto’, after a fundraising campaign that began in 2008. Earlier this year the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford bought a Manet at the knockdown price of 7.8 million pounds after another public appeal. Needless to say this means of acquiring works has many drawbacks. There is far less choice than on the open market, and, in the case of the Acceptance scheme, the allocation process is something of a lottery. Luckily, in this instance a condition was made that the picture should be offered to the Fitzwilliam. The Museum now has the rare chance to buy an extremely important picture at a fraction of its value. This is an opportunity that neither the Fitzwilliam nor Cambridge can afford to miss.

For more information, or to donate, visit www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/support/poussin.html