This lecture will explore French painter Nicolas Poussin’s dancing pictures, their reception, and their legacy. The pictures that Poussin painted during his early career—in the 1620s and 1630s—are full of drunken revelry, sexual abandon, violence, and passion of every kind. They are also full of dancing, for in this period he made a name for himself as a painter of dances: breathless, rhythmic scenes made for collectors, cardinals, and the king of Spain. Emily A. Beeny is curator of the exhibition Poussin and the Dance. A specialist in French paintings and drawings of the 17th through 19th centuries, she joined the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco in 2021 as curator in charge of European paintings. Her previous appointment was in the drawings department at the J. Paul Getty Museum, where she co-organized the exhibitions Manet and Modern Beauty (2019–2020) and La Surprise: Watteau in Los Angeles (2021–2022).