Diana and Callisto; and Jupiter and Danaë

Studying initially under Colin de Vermont and his uncle Jean Restout before entering the workhop of Boucher, Deshays was awarded the Grand Prix in 1751 and three years later left for Rome, where he was to spend the next four years. A year after his return to Paris in 1758, he was received at the Academy. Success followed soon thereafter - in the Salon of 1761, Diderot wrote of the artist 'Ce peintre est à mon sens le premier peintre de la nation.' With his early death some four years later, one of the great hopes of French painting disappeared.

Two other similar drawings by the artist also depicting Danaë, are in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (J. Guiffrey and P. Marcel, Inventaire Général de l'Ecole Française, 1901, V, nos. 3624-3625).

We are grateful to Alastair Laing for confirming the attribution.