The Landaus have owned Agony in the Garden for the past 22 years, and it has held pride of place ever since in the “center hall gallery with four of our greatest masterpieces,” Jon said in an email. They most recently lent the work to the Louvre’s 2015 exhibition “Poussin and God.” He continued, “The Met already had the largest group of Poussins in North America, and our picture truly adds to and enhances its collection of the artist.” 

“This medium of oil on copper in 17th-century Europe was always understood as really a collector’s item, a luxury object—it upped the ante,” Pullins said. “It’s a glitzy object from the start, calling attention to itself. It would have been kind of thing that a collector would have kept like a smaller cabinet space that was really meant for close looking, and so naturally, it rewards that kind of close looking.” 

A somewhat rusted cooper surface with a Latin inscription reading 'SALVATORIS IN HORTO GETSEMA / NI A NICOLAO POVSSIN COLORIBVS / EXPRESSA' Nicolas Poussin, Agony in the Garden (verso), ca. 1626–27. THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, GIFT OF JON AND BARBARA LANDAU IN HONOR OF KEITH CHRISTIANSEN On the verso of the painting is a Latin inscription, “SALVATORIS IN HORTO GETSEMA / NI A NICOLAO POVSSIN COLORIBVS / EXPRESSA,” that is consistent with how the work would have been inventoried upon entering the collection Carlo Antonio dal Pozzo, the brother of Cassiano dal Pozzo, who would eventually become Poussin’s greatest patron in Rome.