Diana, Goddess of the Hunt

1686

Willem van Mieris(Leiden 1662 – 1747 Leiden)

oil on panel
18 x 14.4 cm
signed and dated in dark paint, lower rightcorner: “W. V. Mieris. Fet. 1686”
WM-101
Currently on view at: The National Museum ofChina, Beijing© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Diana, Goddess of the Hunt
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How To Cite
Buvelot, Quentin. "Diana, Goddess of the Hunt." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited by Arthur K.
Wheelock Jr. New York, 2017.
https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/.
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© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Diana, Goddess of the HuntPage 3 of 8Frans van Mieris the Elder (1635–81) trained his sons Jan (1660–90) andComparative Figures

Willem in the fijnschilder tradition. Unfortunately, Jan died at a young agein Rome before he produced many works, but Willem continued to paintwell into the eighteenth century. His works, which are rather slick inexecution, were in great demand and fetched high prices. He painted
many of the same subjects as his father, but he also produced many
history pieces and, after 1700, kitchen and shop scenes. These pieces,with their Gerrit Dou–like stone window framing devices (fig 1), were fairly
old-fashioned by this time, though they were still popular with collectors.[1]Willem van Mieris painted this work in 1686 when he was about 24 years
old. Here, a woman dressed à l’antique in a gold-colored robe with a red
sash stands before an idealized hilly, wooded landscape opening up toruins and a distant mountain. Van Mieris effectively used the muted

Fig 1. Attributed to Willem vanMieris, A Man Drinking and a
Woman Offering Him a Fish,undated, oil on panel, 34 x 29 cm,
private collection

tonalities of this evocative Arcadian landscape to set off the woman’s lightfilled and sensual form. The delicacy of the artist’s painterly touch, soreminiscent of that of his father (see FM-103), is particularly evident in theshimmering blue of her scarf (fig 2) and in the individual brushstrokes thatmodel the blue and white ostrich feathers in her hair.
The woman is without doubt meant to represent Diana, the goddess of theFig 2. Detail of scarf fromWM-101

hunt, who is also known by her Greek name Artemis. Although the painteromitted the crescent moon, Diana’s primary attribute, she is depicted
holding an arrow taken from the quiver lying on the rocky ledge before her.
In Van Mieris’s day, Diana was associated with elegance and purity. The
latter association may be somewhat surprising, as the woman’s plungingdécolleté reveals a nipple that gives the painting an erotic charge.[2] It is
not known whether this painting had a pendant, but the gaze of thegoddess would seem to suggest that there was one, probably Diana’s twin
brother, Apollo, the patron god of music and poetry.[3]At first glance, this scene with Diana appears to be a portrait historié, apainting in which a real person is depicted as a historical, biblical, orFig 3. Willem van Mieris, The
Repentant Mary Magdalene,1709, oil on panel, 20.3 x 15.7cm, present location unknown

mythological figure, but this is far from certain.[4] The painting wasdescribed as a portrait historié as early as 1842, when the English dealer
John Smith published it as “A Young Lady, in the character of Diana.”
Smith’s description was paraphrased in a Paris sales catalogue only twoyears later,[5] and the notion that the painting is a portrait historié hasappeared frequently in the literature.[6] Diana’s face, however, lacks the© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Diana, Goddess of the HuntPage 4 of 8kind of individualized features seen in Van Mieris’s female portraits.[7] Her
doll-like face with its double chin and thick neck resembles that of otherstereotypical female figures in Van Mieris’s history paintings, as in hispainting The Repentant Mary Magdalene, 1701 (fig 3). As Junko Aono
has noted, Van Mieris’s paintings are populated by highly idealized womenwith “marble-like smooth skin, graceful poses and gestures and an almost
sculpted classical profile.”[8] Van Mieris used panels of almost the same
size to paint other scenes of women from history, including a painting ofMary Magdalene dated 1709, in which the saint, like Diana here, isportrayed looking to the left in front of an idealized landscape.[9]Portrait historié or not, this small jewel-like panel painting, which measures
only 18 by 14.4 centimeters, is an exquisite example of Willem van Mieris’s
skillful handling of paint at the beginning of his career. The smooth,
blended brushstrokes he used to model the ivory-colored flesh tones andbolder touches he applied to accent the woman’s elegant wardrobe aretechniques that helped establish his reputation as one of the finest paintersof his day.

-Quentin Buvelot© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Diana, Goddess of the Hunt
Page 5 of 8Endnotes
1. A monograph on the artist is still a desideratum. For literature on Van Mieris, see thereferences listed in Junko Aono, “Imitation and Innovation: Dutch Genre Painting 1680–1750
and Its Reception of the Golden Age” (Ph.D. diss., University of Amsterdam, 2011), 174.
2. This pictorial motif had been introduced earlier in Dutch seventeenth-century painting;see Marlies Enklaar in Peter Schoon and Sander Paarlberg, eds., Greek Gods and Heroes
in the Age of Rubens and Rembrandt (Exh. cat. Athens, National Gallery/Alexandros
Soutzos Museum; Athens, Netherlands Institute; Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum) (Athens,2000), 368 n. 1.
3. See Marlies Enklaar in Peter Schoon and Sander Paarlberg, eds.,Greek Gods and Heroes
in the Age of Rubens and Rembrandt (Exh. cat. Athens, National Gallery/Alexandros
Soutzos Museum; Athens, Netherlands Institute; Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum) (Athens,2000), 256.
4. See Rose Wishnevsky, “Studien zum ‘portrait historié’ in den Niederlanden” (Ph.D. diss.,
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, 1967); E. de Jongh, Portretten van echt en trouw:
Huwelijk en gezin in de Nederlandse kunst van de zeventiende eeuw (Exh. cat. Haarlem,Frans Hals Museum) (Haarlem, 1986), 319–31.
5. John Smith, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish andFrench Painters. 9 vols. (London, 1829–42, suppl., 1842), 9:63, no. 34. The catalogue of thesale in Paris, 23 March 1844, no. 10, describes the scene as “Une Dame en costume dechasseresse.” It is known that Van Mieris made portraits historiés; a drawing of a woman
portrayed as Diana was sold in Amsterdam, 9 March 1767, lot 1050 (index cards ofHofstede de Groot, Netherlands Institute for Art History, The Hague: “Het Pourtret van een
Dame verbeeldende Diana, met zwart kryd getekend als de voorgaande, door denzelven [W.
Mieres]”).
6. Eric Jan Sluijter, in Peter Schoon and Sander Paarlberg, eds.,Greek Gods and Heroes in
the Age of Rubens and Rembrandt (Exh. cat. Athens, National Gallery/Alexandros Soutzos
Museum and Netherlands Institute; Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum) (Athens, 2000), 62;
Dominique Surh, “Portrait of a Woman as Artemis,” in Salomon Lilian Old Masters (salescat., Amsterdam, Salomon Lilian B. V.) (Zwolle, 2004), 54–55, no. 17.
7. As was convincingly pointed out by Marlies Enklaar in Peter Schoon and Sander Paarlberg,eds., Greek Gods and Heroes in the Age of Rubens and Rembrandt (Exh. cat. Athens,National Gallery/Alexandros Soutzos Museum; Athens, Netherlands Institute; Dordrecht,Dordrechts Museum) (Athens, 2000), 256. Compare, for example, the face of Diana with theoval pendant portrait of an unknown woman from 1706 (copper, 14.3 x 12.5 cm,
whereabouts unknown; bought in at sale, Christie’s, Amsterdam, 8 May 2012, lot 50, repr.,© 2017 The Leiden Collection

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together with a pendant portrait of the husband; see Cornelis Hofstede de Groot,Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten Höllandischen
Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts, 10 vols. (Esslingen and Paris, 1907–28), 10:209, 213, nos.
398 and 418). For an overview of Van Mieris’s portraiture, see the photographs kept at theRKD (Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie/Netherlands Institute for Art History).
8. Junko Aono, “Imitation and Innovation: Dutch Genre Painting 1680–1750 and Its Receptionof the Golden Age,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam 2011), 173.
9. Panel, 20.3 x 16.2 cm, signed and dated 1709 (formerly read as “1701”), whereabouts
unknown; formerly in the H. Blank collection, Newark, N.J., appeared at sale, Christie’s,London, 3 December 2008, lot 139, repr.; see Cornelis Hofstede de Groot,Beschreibendes
und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke der hervorragendsten Höllandischen Maler des XVII.
Jahrhunderts, 10 vols. (Esslingen and Paris, 1907–28), 10: no. 37.

Provenance
Private dealer, Paris, 1837.
M. Martini Collection, Paris, by 1837 (his sale, Bonnefons, Paris, 23 March 1844, no. 10 [for1140 francs]).
Private collection, Paris.
(Probably sale, Piasa & E. Madec, Paris, July 1997).
[Haboldt & Co., Paris].
[Artemis Fine Arts S. A., London, 2000–1; Salomon Lilian B. V., Amsterdam, 2004].
From whom acquired by the present owner in 2004.

Exhibition History
Athens, National Gallery/Alexandros Soutzos Museum and Netherlands Institute, “GreekGods and Heroes in the Age of Rubens and Rembrandt,” 28 September 2000–8 January
2001, no. 50; Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum, 3 February–8 May 2001, no. 50 [lent byLondon, Artemis Fine Arts S. A.].
Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art, “Small Treasures: Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals, andTheir Contemporaries,” 12 October 2014–4 January 2015; Birmingham, Birmingham
Museum of Art, 1 February–26 April 2015, no. 26 [lent by the present owner].
© 2017 The Leiden Collection

Diana, Goddess of the Hunt
Page 7 of 8Beijing, National Museum of China, “Rembrandt and His Time: Masterpieces from The
Leiden Collection,” 17 June–3 September 2017 [lent by the present owner].

References
Smith, John. A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of the Most Eminent Dutch, Flemish andFrench Painters. 9 vols. London, 1829–42, suppl., 1842, 9:63, no. 34.
Hofstede de Groot, Cornelis. Beschreibendes und kritisches Verzeichnis der Werke derhervorragendsten höllandischen Maler des XVII. Jahrhunderts . 10 vols. Esslingen andParis, 1907–28, 10:212, no. 412.
Sluijter, Eric Jan. In Greek Gods and Heroes in the Age of Rubens and Rembrandt. Editedby Peter Schoon and Sander Paarlberg. Exh. cat. Athens, National Gallery/Alexandros
Soutzos Museum and Netherlands Institute; Dordrecht, Dordrechts Museum. Athens, 2000.
Enklaar, Marlies. In Greek Gods and Heroes in the Age of Rubens and Rembrandt. Editedby Peter Schoon and Sander Paarlberg, 256–57, no. 50. Exh. cat. Athens, National
Gallery/Alexandros Soutzos Museum and Netherlands Institute; Dordrecht, DordrechtsMuseum. Athens, 2000.
Surh, Dominique. “Portrait of a Woman as Artemis.” In Salomon Lilian Old Masters. Salescat. Amsterdam, Salomon Lilian B. V. Zwolle, 2004, 54–55, no. 17.
Weller, Dennis P. “Portrait of a Woman as Artemis.” In Small Treasures: Rembrandt,Vermeer, Hals, and Their Contemporaries . Exh. cat. Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art;
Birmingham, Birmingham Museum of Art. Raleigh, 2014, 146–49, no. 26.

Technical Summary
The support, a single plank of vertically grained, rectangular oak with bevels on all four sides, isunthinned and uncradled.[1] All four outer edges of the panel reverse have been routed 1 cm inwidth and 0.5 cm into the panel’s thickness. Adhesive residue and wood remnants along therouted surfaces suggest wood additions have been removed. The panel reverse has a few small
remnants of paper tape or paper labels but no wax seals, import stamps or panel maker’s mark.
Gero Seelig, from the Staatliches Museum Schwerin, Germany, held a symposium at the 2011
CODART meeting regarding the unusual construction of three-panel paintings from thatcollection, one by Willem van Mieris. According to Seelig: “In all three, a smaller panel is inlaid
into a larger one so that only the front surface of the smaller one—surrounded by the surface ofthe larger panel—shows. The actual painting extends over both surfaces. Art historians have© 2017 The Leiden CollectionPowered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

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automatically assumed that this construction is a later alteration of the original panel. However,conservators can demonstrate that this is not the case. Nevertheless, in the past the supposed‘enlargement’ was removed.” [2] Further investigation is required to determine what modification
this panel may have undergone.
A light-colored ground has been thinly and evenly applied followed by paint applied smoothly insuccessive thin layers of transparent glazing with slightly raised low brushmarking along the tree
foliage, blue plumes and drapery folds, as well as along the quivers and the blue outline anddetails of the quiver case.
No underdrawing is readily apparent in infrared images captured at 780–1000 nanometers. Theimages reveal a compositional change along the blue sash above the figure’s proper left hand,which was shifted higher during the paint stage.
The painting is signed and dated in dark paint along the lower right corner.
The painting has not undergone conservation treatment since its acquisition and remains in agood state of preservation.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. The characterization of the wood is based on visual examination of the X-radiograph andpanel reverse images by Ian Tyers. According to Tyers, the panel has good potential fordendrochronology.
2. From CODART’s website.

© 2017 The Leiden Collection