Diana hunting with her nymphs and hounds

This impressive painting is one of a set of three depicting consecutive scenes of the goddess Diana on a hunt. In the first painting (fig. 1; Le Mans, Musée de Tessé), Diana aims her bow and arrow towards the deer, surrounded by nymphs and hounds; the present painting shows the aftermath of the kill, where the hounds devour their prey; and in the third (Lyon, Private collection) Diana, accompanied by her nymphs and hounds, rests after their return. The narrative cycle is carried by the figure of Diana, who wears a variation of the same headdress, bright blue dress and sandals in each painting. Given their complementary subject matter, as well as their similar dimensions and format, they were probably commissioned to hang as part of a specific interior decorative scheme. The theme of the paintings suggests that they were more likely intended for a hunting lodge than for a townhouse. Nothing of the early history of the pictures is known, and it is unclear when they were dispersed. The Le Mans painting was first recorded in 1839 in the posthumous inventory of Joseph, Cardinal Fesch (1763-1839), where it was attributed to Eustache le Sueur. The present painting did not appear on the art market until the 1960s, with an attribution to Laurent de la Hyre, and again in the early 1970s, when it was given to Jacques Blanchard. After the third painting re-emerged slightly later in the 1970s, all three were given to Laurent de la Hyre (Dunlop, op. cit.).

These varying attributions convey the uncertainty regarding the authorship of the series. Scholars have generally agreed that the paintings were executed by a French classical artist working in the 1640s and ‘50s, although some have suggested that the three paintings may not all be by the same hand. Whilst the colouring, design and modelling of the figures have historically been associated with Eustache Le Sueur, Laurent de la Hyre and Nicolas Colombel, more recent scholarship by Rosenberg and Thuillier (op. cit), Chaserant (op. cit) and Mérot (op. cit) has concluded that they were most likely painted by an anonymous artist working either in the studio or the circle of Simon Vouet (1590-1649). This idea was first proposed for the Le Mans picture by Michel Laclotte in 1958 when it was exhibited in London and Paris.

We are grateful to Arnauld Brejon de Lavergnée for suggesting that the landscape in the present work is by François Bellin (d. 1661). Bellin collaborated with Charles Le Brun on a series of paintings that served as models for the tapestry workshops of the Gobelins Manufactory, including The Hunt of Meleager and Atalanta (Paris, Musée du Louvre) and Meleager presents Atalanta with the head of the Calydonian Boar (Liverpool, Walker Art Gallery; for which see B. Gady, L'ascension de Charles Le Brun: Liens sociaux et production artistique, Paris, 2010, pp. 317, 319).