The Philistines captured the Ark of the Covenant & placed it in the temple of the idol Dagon in Ashdod, but the Lord caused the idol to be smashed & its worshippers to be plague-stricken. Old Testament (I Samuel 5: 1-6). On the left are the Ark of the Covenant & the broken idol of Dagon. This is a copy of Poussin's original of 1630-1 (Paris, Louvre), but with differences in the background. These differences may reflect an earlier idea for the background in Poussin's picture.