A finished drawing of Medea in a fury, about to stab her younger son, as their nurse recoils over the body of the first, and Jason throws himself towards the scene.

Jason and the Argonauts landed in Colchis to gain the Golden Fleece. Medea, the daughter of King Aeëtes, fell in love with Jason, helped him by magic to his goal, and fled her homeland to return to Greece with him. Later, when Jason deserted her, she took her revenge by murdering, among others, their two sons. Ovid barely touched on this episode (Metamorphoses, VII, 396); the best-known full account of the story was Euripides' play. The woman beside Jason is presumably intended to be Creusa, his new bride, a rare narrative slip by Poussin, as Medea killed her and her father King Creon before slaying her own children.

No painting of this subject by Poussin is known, though Bellori describes such a composition without specifying whether he is referring to a painting or a drawing (Le Vite de Pittori, 1672, p. 449) – several of Bellori’s accounts seem to be of drawings (cf. RCIN 911983-4), and in the absence of any documented painting it is reasonable to suppose that this was the work seen by Bellori.

Until the 1990s the drawing was routinely described as a copy or a 'studio' work, but the figures are typical of Poussin's drawings during the forties as he finalised a design, and the background displays all the master's mannerisms. A sketch for the composition is at RCIN 911892.