3-097-503 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Landscape with Diana and Acteon, c1608. The scene depicts the myth of Diana and Actaeon , as recounted by Ovid in Book III of the Metamorphoses, in which the goddess is caught bathing naked with her nymphs during a break from hunting. This act unleashes her wrath upon Acteon the hunter, transforming him into a stag. The figures are by Hendrik de Clerck, and the forest is attributed to Denis van Alsloot. The figures of Diana and the reclining nymph with her back to the viewer are taken from the engraving made by Jan Saenredam after Hendrick Goltzius's Diana and Callisto, itself inspired by Titian's scene of the same subject, which had been engraved by Cornelis Cort. The model for the figure of Actaeon is the Apollo Belvedere, one of the most widely disseminated sculptures since the beginning of the 17th century.