Diana and Nymphs,
oil on canvas, 158 x 125 cm, framed

Provenance:
Private collection, Rome

The Roman goddess Diana is represented in this painting in her typical guise as a huntress. She is shown at the centre of the scene and is identifiable by the halfmoon on her forehead; she wears a light chiton and she holds a hunting horn, the greyhound is at her side, while two nymphs follow her bearing spears, one of whom, without stretched arm, offers her a crown of flowers. The figures are shown in a natural landscape that opens out on to a distant hilly landscape.

The light colouring of the palette, the elegant composition and the monumentality of the figures are all hallmarks of the painting’s origin as a French production of of the seventeenth century. The diffusion of a classical style in the wake of examples by Nicolas Poussin gave rise to the so-called ‘Parisian atticism’ which dominated French taste between 1640 and 1660, its protagonists included Jacques Stella, Laurent de la Hyre and Philippe de Champaigne. The development of this current of French painting was also influenced in a decisive manner by Simon Vouet, who following his Italian sojourn during the 1620s, when he came into contact with the most advanced artistic currents of the era from Caravaggio and Rubens, he returned to Paris in 1627 to assert the great lyricism and decorative flare of his classical style of baroque imprint. Orazio Gentileschi who resided in France from 1624 to 1626 before he travelled on to the English court, also left an important mark on seventeenth century French painting (see J. P. Cuzin, Gentileschi e la Francia, Gestileschi e i francesi, in: K. Christiansen/J. W. Mann, Orazio e Artemisia Gentileschi, exhibition catalogue, Milan 2001, pp. 203-213). His painting of Diana the Huntress (Musée des Beaux- Arts, Nantes) although executed while he was in England, was already in Paris by 1630.

The mythological subject of Diana, which was frequently associated with the French monarchy, had already been adopted in the sixteenth century decorations of Fontainbleau, and the as yet unknown artist of the present painting had probably studied these works. The elegance of the forms, the attention to the monumentality of the figures, the ability with which they are projected sotto in sù and softly modelled in light and shade distinguish the present Diana as close to the productions of Jean Monier or Mosnier (1600–1650) of Blois. This painter, whose corpus of work is yet to be fully reconstructed, was influenced by the painting of Orazio Gentileschi, as is demonstrated by his Allegory in the Musée du Château at Blois (see J. P. Cuzin, Ibid., 2001, p. 206, fig. 80) and, likely following a journey to Rome, he worked at the Palais du Luxembourg, Paris. Other similarities of style can also be found with the work of Laurent de La Hyre (1606–1656) whose early works are in the manner of the second school of Fontainbleau.