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# Advertisement with Poussin's painting from the Louvre and its subject of death in Arcadia
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/arkadskie-pastukhi-nikola-pussena-1637-38-gg-v-reklame-muzhskikh-dukhov-lolity-lempitski/
- Published: 2024-10-27T08:39:17.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T18:43:41.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Art, Museums, Observations, Paris, Pop Culture

Nicolas Poussin's "The Shepherds of Arcadia" (1637–38) in an advertisement for Lolita Lempicka's men's fragrance.

The first thought on seeing this dreadful advertisement: did the collaboration bring the Louvre, which houses Poussin's immortal canvas, enough money to acquire for its collection yet another painting by the French master, recently come up at auction?

The second: the figures of this very picture are not appearing in advertising and photoshopped parodies for the first time; earlier they gazed in rapture at a Citroën.

What ought to concern us is the complete failure to grasp the subject depicted. True, this painting by Poussin has become one of the most recognisable in the history of world art, and in large part even a byword. Yet it embodies a riddle about death. The shepherds are deciphering an inscription on a tomb, which reads: Et in Arcadia Ego, that is, "I too am in Arcadia". Whether it is the occupant of the tomb speaking or Death herself, who has appeared to the shepherds in an idyllic female guise, the phrase tells us that death exists even in blessed, paradisal Arcadia.

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_13974@27-10-2024_11-39-17.jpg)

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_13975@27-10-2024_11-39-17.jpg)