Art Institute of Chicago

Diana in the Bath

Georg Pencz

Date

c. 1533

Medium

Engraving in black on ivory laid paper

Culture

Germany

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

In this intimately scaled print Georg Pencz depicted the story of Diana and Actaeon from the Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses . The hunter Actaeon stumbles upon Diana, Roman goddess of hunting and chastity, and her attendants bathing. Diana punishes Actaeon by splashing him with water from the pool, transforming him into a deer. In this version, Pencz showed Actaeon mid- transformation with a deer-like head and human body. In the background, between the heads of Diana and her attendant, you can see the fate of the doomed son of Aristaeus: he is chased down and ripped apart by his own hounds.

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