Message #25662

[Danielle Gorree]

Sculpted versions

The undated mid-eighteenth-century marble bas-relief part of the "Shepherd's Monument, a garden feature at Shugborough House, Staffordshire, England, beneath it is the encoded "Shugborough House inscription", as yet undeciphered. The reversed composition shows that it was copied from an engraving, the compositions of which are commonly reversed because direct copies to the plate produce mirror images on printing.

In 1832 another relief was sculpted as part of the monument marking Poussin's tomb in Rome, on which it appears beneath a bust of the artist. In the words of the art historian Richard Verdi, it appears as if the shepherds are contemplating "their own author's death."

In conjunction with John Andrew, the artist Ian Hamilton Finlay created a marble carving entitled "Et in Arcadia ego" in 1976. Carved below the title are the words "After Nicholas Poussin" The main part of the carving shows a military tank in a pastoral landscape.