Jan Wierix Diana and Actaeon Pen and brown ink on vellum PROVENANCE There are five large-scale representations of the Diana and Actaeon story by Wierix, mostly dated in the late 1590s. The other four can be found in the British Museum, the Kunsthalle, Hamburg, the collection of Jean Bonna, Geneva and the art market, Paris. These stand apart from the main body of his work as an engraver and miniaturist and must certainly have been intended for sale rather than as designs for prints. The five drawings vary greatly in composition and can by no means be thought of as different versions of the same image. The present sheet is the largest of the five, and indeed the largest single work by this artist that has come to light so far. Wierix was in the habit of repeating the subject matter of his drawings, albeit with great disparity of invention. This is partly the result of his livelihood as a printmaker, which demanded popular themes, such as the story illustrated here. He worked with his two brothers, Anthonie and Hieronymus, joining the Guild of St. Luke in 1572 and settling in Antwerp. Unlike Hans Bol, (q.v. no. 8) the Roman Catholic Wierix seems to have survived the brutal incursion of Spanish troops into that city in 1584. He remained there until 1600, when he was recorded as being in Brussels. The story of Diana and Actaeon, as recounted by Ovid in his Metamorphoses, Book 3, lines 138-253, centres on the accidental discovery of Diana, the goddess of hunting, while she was bathing with her nymphs, by the mortal prince of Troy, Actaeon. For his impertinence in seeing her naked, Diana transformed Actaeon into a stag, upon which he was hunted and torn to pieces by his own hounds. |
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