Diana and her Nymphs surprised by Satyrs
Artist/Maker
Material / Technique
Dimensionsh x w: Mått 92 x 126 cm
Inventory numberNM 391
Other titlesTitle (sv): Diana och hennes nymfer överraskade av satyrer Title (en): Diana and her Nymphs surprised by Satyrs
DescriptionCatalogue raisonné: Description in Flemish paintings C. 1600-C. 1800 III, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2010, cat.no. 232: Technical notes: The support, a fine, plain weave canvas, has been lined. The fabric support sustained damage in the form of a short tear at the lower right, in the figure of a satyr pursuing a nymph. One or two pentimenti can be seen with the naked eye: Diana’s right thigh was evidently first painted at a higher level, and the outlines of her outstretched left leg have been slightly adjusted. Although the thin upper layers in the landscape background are moderately abraded, the painting is overall in very good condition, particularly the figures in the foreground, with minor losses confined to the tear and edges. The painting underwent conservation treatment in 1935, 1976 and 1977. Provenance: Gustav III 1792, no. 127 (as Abraham van Diepenbeeck); KM 1795, no. 34; KM 1816, no. 679. Exhibited: Stockholm 1977, no. 62 (as Hendrick van Balen I). Bibliography: NM Cat. 1867, p. 27 (as Abraham van Diepenbeeck); Sander II, p. 113; Göthe 1887, pp. 67–68 (as Abraham van Diepenbeeck); Göthe 1893, p. 83; NM Cat. 1958, p. 60 (as Abraham van Diepenbeeck); Balis 1986, p. 245 n. 6 (as Frans Wouters); NM Cat. 1990, p. 112 (as Abraham van Diepenbeeck). Five satyrs – with two more approaching in the background – attempt to overpower the chaste goddess Diana and her nymphs as they rest after the hunt. The female figure on the right, brandishing an arrow, is probably the goddess herself. Eight of her nude companions are engaged in a fierce struggle with the wanton, cloven-footed sylvan deities, while another nymph in the right foreground, fully clothed, sleeps quietly on. Five dogs snap fiercely at the satyrs. The struggle takes place on the banks of a narrow stream flowing through a pastoral landscape, the feathery foliage of the trees silhouetted against a warm golden sky. A reference to hunting – Diana’s favourite pastime – is seen by the inclusion of the nymphs’ hunting gear in the foreground (bow and quivers, javelins, horns) together with dead game (a wild boar, does, hares). The colour scheme is based on a contrast between the flesh-tints – white for the nymphs, brown for the satyrs – and the greenish landscape and golden skies, enlivened by brighter spots of drapery: crimson for Diana, green for the nymph to her left, sky-blue for the nymph being attacked on the left. This painting carries an old attribution to the Antwerp history painter Abraham van Diepenbeeck that was retained until its present reattribution to Frans Wouters.1 Several of the rather Rubenesque figures were literally borrowed or adapted from a painting of the same subject in Madrid (Museo nacional del Prado), from the series of eighteen paintings by Peter Paul Rubens in collaboration with the animal painter Frans Snyders – eight of which are hunting scenes and related subjects – commissioned by King Philip IV of Spain in 1639 for his summer quarters in the Alcázar, the royal palace in Madrid.2 Thus, for example, the motif of a satyr catching hold of a nymph at the back of the group of figures on the left is copied after Rubens’ composition; the nymph seen from the back in the group on the left, with drapery swirling around her outstretched right arm brandishing an arrow, was adapted from Rubens’ Diana; the reclining nude nymph on the right, being valiantly defended by Diana against a satyr, was adapted from the third nymph from the right in Rubens’ painting – the position of her legs has been reversed, and the Satyr now grabs her breast instead of her arms, while attempting to shield himself from the arrow with his outstretched right arm; the sleeping nymph in the foreground of Rubens’ composition, her pose inspired by an antique statue of the Sleeping Hermaphrodite, has metamorphosed into the nymph in the left foreground of the Stockholm picture, raising herself from the ground on muscular arms. In addition, the pose of the satyr chas- ing a fleeing nymph at the back of the group on the right was apparently copied after another painting in the Alcázar series, The Death of Silvia’s Stag, in which a nymph rushes forward with arms extended behind the figure of the kneeling Silvia.3 The dog climbing out of the stream onto the right bank seems to have been copied after one attacking a wild boar in the Death of Adonis from the same series, or after Snyders’ model drawing.4 Unlike other copies after the Alcázar series, the present picture is not a faithful copy but rather an adaptation and reworking of Rubens’ original composition. Instead of Rubens’ large frieze-like painting, we have a smaller, cabinet-sized piece, with many smallscale figures divided into two groups arrayed in the foreground of a vast landscape. A copy of the present painting was on the Swedish art market in 1962.5 The subject of Diana and her nymphs surprised by satyrs was treated repeatedly by Wouters in the last decade of his life, in paintings preserved in London (The National Gallery of Art), Vienna (Kunsthistorisches Museum) and Copenhagen (Statens Museum for Kunst).6 In the Stockholm painting, as in Rubens’ Madrid original on which it is based, the eroticized, voyeuristic atmosphere of some of these scenes has been transformed into violence, with a satyr on the right grabbing the breast of a nymph, and a nymph on the left giving a satyr a swift kick in the groin. Fauns and satyrs were often represented in ancient mythology attacking wood nymphs, who struggled to free themselves, and the subject occurs in antique statuary.7 However, the subject of a band of satyrs attacking Diana and her nymphs in the manner depicted in the present work, is exceedingly rare. Although faithful copies exist of several paintings in Rubens’ series of eight hunting scenes for the Alcázar, copies of the Diana and Her Nymphs Attacked by Satyrs are rarer than with other paintings in the series.8 A cabinet-sized copy attributed to Wouters was on the British art market in 1998,9 and there are copies after the Death of Actaeon, the Death of Adonis, and the Death of Silvia’s Stag, attributed to the same artist.10 For the most part the cabinet-sized copies, in which the landscape setting typically occupies a larger area than in Rubens’ originals, follow the compositions of the large-scale canvases. However, two of Wouters’ copies were, in part, apparently copied after Rubens’ oil sketches, suggesting that he probably had access to materials from the master’s studio after his death.11 While his copies after the Alcázar series were probably painted in the early 1640s, a mature, independent work such as the present picture must have been executed comparatively late in the artist’s career. The figures as well as the arcadian landscape can be stylistically compared with the Diana Sleeping in Vienna (Kunsthistorisches Museum), dated by Kemmer to the early 1650s.12 The present painting may be dated somewhat earlier, around the mid-1640s. CF 1 Horst Gerson tentatively suggested an attribution to Wouters already in 1956; see the letter by Gerson dated 16 August 1956 in the curatorial files of the Paintings Department of the Nationalmuseum. This opinion was shared by Balis 1986, p. 245 n. 6. 2 Oil on canvas, 128 x 314, Madrid, Museo nacional del Prado, inv. no. 1665; see Balis 1986, no. 22, fig. 112. Rubens’ original oil sketch for the Diana and Her Nymphs Attacked by Satyrs has not survived. For the series as a whole, see Held 1980, pp. 305–312; and Balis 1986, pp. 218–264. The commission is first mentioned on 22 June 1639, in a letter in which the Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand informs his brother, King Philip IV, that the paintings for the bóveda de palacio had been begun. Rubens’ oil sketches for all the paintings had been completed by 22 July of that year, eight of the large paintings based on these sketches were ready to be shipped by 10 January 1640, and the ten remaining ones followed after 20May 1640. Seven sketches for this project have been preserved. 3 Oil on canvas, 125 x 320, Gerona, Museo Arqueólogico Provincial, inv. no. 39-P; see Balis 1986, no. 25, fig. 124. Rubens’ oil sketch for this painting, oil on oak, 23.2 x 52.6, is in Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, John G. Johnson Coll., inv. no. 2703; see Held 1980, I, no. 224; and Balis 1986, no. 25a, fig. 122. 4 For Rubens’ oil sketch (Princeton, N. J., The Art Museum of Princeton University) for the (lost) Death of Adonis, see Balis 1986, pp. 249–250, fig. 119. 5 Oil on canvas, 91 x 123, Stockholm, Bengt Rapp, 1962 (as Daniel Vertangen). To judge from the photograph on file at the RKD, The Hague, this was a rather dry, uninspired copy. 6 London, The National Gallery of Art, inv. no. 1871; Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum; and Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kunst; see Glück 1933, figs. 123 and 133. 7 Cf. Horace, Odes, III, 18, 1: “Faune, Nympharum fugientum amator”. 8 A copy of the Diana and Her Nymphs Attacked by Satyrs, possibly a studio replica, is in Florence, Pitti Palace (oil on canvas, the orig. canvas c. 150 x 260 cm, inv. Palatina no. 141), very accurate except that it has been slightly extended at the top. A series of four same-size copies of Rubens’ originals – including the scene of Diana and her nymphs attacked by satyrs – are preserved at Nîmes (Musée des Beaux-Arts). These were probably not produced in Rubens’ studio. See Balis 1986, figs. 108, 113, 115. According to Balis, a possible indication that copies after this late hunting series were made in Rubens’ own studio is found in some items of the accounts relating to his estate in 1645, which records the sale of unfinished hunting pictures: “XLVI. Item vercocht aenden heer Commis Maes, tot Brussel, de vier naevolgende stucken, noch nyet heel opgemaekt... XLVII. Noch een Jachte van Satyrs ende nimphen, voor thien ponden vlems, comt...60 -”. See P. Génard, “De nalatenschap van P. P. Rubens”, p. 86, cited by Balis 1986, p. 230 n. 42. 9 Oil on wood, 100 x 120 cm, sale, London, Christie’s, 22 April 1998, lot 87 (as circle of Peter Paul Rubens). In the photographic archives of the RKD, The Hague, the painting is ascribed to Frans Wouters. 10 For a discussion of these copies, with an attribution to Wouters, see Balis 1986, pp. 222, 245, 246 (under no. 23), 248 (under no. 24), 251, 252 (under no. 25), figs. 116, 125. 11 See Denucé 1932, p. 81; Balis 1986, p. 222; and Kemmer 1995, p. 232. 12 Oil on canvas, 86 x 91 cm, Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, inv. no. GG 3683, see Kemmer 1995, pp. 237–238, 240, fig. 35.[End]
Motif categoryReligion/Mythology
Collection
TechniquePainting
Object category
Keyword