Diana in the Bath

Description

In this intimately scaled print Georg Pencz depicted the story of Diana and Actaeon from the Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The hunter Actaeon stumbles upon Diana, Roman goddess of hunting and chastity, and her attendants bathing. Diana punishes Actaeon by splashing him with water from the pool, transforming him into a deer. In this version, Pencz showed Actaeon mid- transformation with a deer-like head and human body. In the background, between the heads of Diana and her attendant, you can see the fate of the doomed son of Aristaeus: he is chased down and ripped apart by his own hounds.

Diana in the Bath

Georg Pencz

c. 1533

Accession Number

77511

Medium

Engraving in black on ivory laid paper

Dimensions

Sheet: 4.7 × 7.8 cm (1 7/8 × 3 1/8 in.)

Classification

engraving

Museum

The Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, United States

Credit Line

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Potter Palmer