Rape of Sabine Women (c1638). Oil on canvas. 159 x 206. The Plague of Ashdod is also known as The Miracle of the Ark in the Temple of Dagon, by the French artist Nicolas Poussin. The painting represents a story from 1 Samuel in the Old Testament. The original painting currently hangs in the Louvre in Paris. Poussin was commissioned to paint The Plague of Ashdod by Fabrizio Valguarnera. Fabrizio Valguarnera was a Sicilian merchant who was put on trial for laundering money through the purchase of this painting; he also commissioned more than one version of this piece. Poussin painted this during a plague that took place in Italy from 1629 to 1631, which influenced his accurate portrayal of the epidemic. Nicolas Poussin was a French artist who was born in 1594 in Les Andelys, Normandy. Poussin's life ended in Rome in 1665. During the time that Poussin began working on this commission of the Plague of Ashdod, there was a terrible bubonic plague outbreak in Italy from 1629 to 1631. Poussin was then living in Rome, which the plague actually did not infect at this time; however, Poussin was still influenced by this epidemic when creating the Plague at Ashdod. Many who have studied this painting by Poussin have been fascinated with his advanced knowledge of the nature of the epidemic. Poussin wrote his Observations on Painting after 1627. His writings and observations included his understanding of the epidemic. It had valuable information that gave insight to the plague; however, the text was never completed. In these writings, Poussin discusses Aristotle's concept of loyalty. To describe people who lack loyalty, Aristotle used the example of family members who murder each other due to contagion. Poussin describes how Aristotle wrote about family members murdering each other because of the fear of disease. Poussin symbolized this lack of loyalty by portraying a man ripping a child away from the corpse of the baby's mother. This might possibly lead to this man's own demise just like that of a child so attached to his or her own mother would become infected with the plague and die as well. This lack of loyalty is shown all throughout this painting. The subject of this painting comes from a story in the Book of Samuel in the Old Testament of the Bible about the Plague of Ashdod. According to 1 Samuel 5:6,7 in the NIV: Now the hand of the LORD was heavy on the people of Ashdod and its vicinity, ravaging them and afflicting them with tumors. And when the men of Ashdod saw what was happening, they said, The ark of the God of Israel must not stay here with us, because His hand is heavy upon us and upon our god Dagon. Poussin himself called this art piece; II miraculo dell'Arca nel tempio di Agon, meaning The Miracle of the Ark in the Temple of Dagon. This name refers to the temple of Dagon, which was destroyed in battle. Sheila Barker has written that this same battle in which the Ark of the Covenant was taken in this Biblical narrative. The theft of this Ark was believed to have unleashed God's wrath and started the plague. One interpretation of the story of Plague of Ashdod stems from a story of the stolen Ark of the Covenant by Philistines during battle. Because this Ark had been stolen, it was believed that plagues sent by the Judaeo-Christian God ravaged the city, riddling the people with disease and death. The purpose of these plagues would be a punishment and cause for the Ark of the Covenant to be returned to the Hebrews from whom it was stolen. Poussin depicts rats throughout the painting running around the bodies of the living and the dead. According to Asensi; when the Philistines sent the Ark of the Covenant back to the Hebrew people, it was sent with a guilt offering consisting of five gold rats and five gold tumors. Paintings depicting the plague are rare because, during the seventeenth century, a common belief was that viewing something such as a plague in art would have detrimental physical repercussions. It was believed that one would manifest what they were viewing and would literally come down with an epidemic such as the plague itself. So strong were these widely accepted beliefs, that this caused images of disease to be very unpopular. Poussin's depictions of the people gesturing to cover their noses show his belief at the time that the breath of plague victims could have been contagious, or possibly the fact that the stench coming from the dying and diseased people was so bad that others had to cover their noses in order to avoid the stench. Plague figures that seem to be portrayed accurately are the hungry baby being pulled away from his dead mother's breasts, so that the baby would not become infected with the plague from the blood and milk of the mother.