| “As further evidence for dating the Sepherds to about 1640 Mahon mentions the fact that, according to Bellori, the theme was suggested by Cardinal Giulio Rospigliosi (he even suggest, though very tentatively, that the picture may have belonged to the cardinal, but the fact that it does not appear in the 1713 inventory of paintings in the Palazzo Rospigliosi makes this unlikely), and points out that the cardinal was absent from Rome from 1644 to 1653, but this evidence could equally be used to support the view that the Shepherds was painted after the latter date.
The composition enjoyed great popularity in the late eighteenth century. A poem based on it, and entitled The Monument in Arcadia, was published by George Keate in 1775, and a monument decorated with a copy of the composition in bas-relief by Sheemakers was erected in the grounds at Shugborough by James Stuart in the mid-eighteenth century.” (Antony Blunt, The Paintings of Nicolas Poussin, A Critical Cataloque, Phaidon, London, 1966)
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 "Et in Arcadia Ego")
