The Diana of Versailles or Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt is a slightly over-lifesize marble statue of the Roman goddess Diana with a deer. It is currently located in the Musée du Louvre, Paris. The statue is also known as Diana with a Doe, Diana Huntress, and Diana of Ephesus. It is a partially restored Roman copy of a lost Greek bronze original attributed to Leochares, c. 325 BC.
Description
Diana is represented at the hunt, hastening forward, as if in pursuit of game. She looks toward the right and with raised right arm is about to draw an arrow from her quiver. Her left arm has been restored, and a deer has been added at her feet, although one might have expected a dog. Her left hand is holding a small cylindrical fragment, which may be part of what was once a bow. She wears a short Dorianchiton, a himation around her waist, and sandals.
History
The statue was given by Pope Paul IV to Henry II of France in 1556 with a subtle but inescapable allusion to the king's mistress, Diane de Poitiers. It was probably discovered in Italy. The Louvre website suggests the Temple of Diana : an ancient sanctuary, while other sources posit Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli. "Alone amongst the statues exported from Italy before the second half of the seventeenth century the Diane Chasseresse acquired a reputation outside Italy equivalent to the masterpieces in the Belvedere or the Villa Borghese", though its admirers generally confused it with the Artemis at the temple of Ephesus. It was installed as the central feature of the Jardin de la Reine laid out west of the Galerie des Cerfs at the Château de Fontainebleau; there it was the most prominently displayed and among the first Roman sculptures to be seen in France. In 1602, Henri IV removed it to the Palais du Louvre, where the Diana was installed in a gallery specially designed to receive it, the Salle des Antiques. At the time, its restorations were revised by Barthélemy Prieur. In 1696 it was installed in the Grande Galerie of Versailles by Louis XIV. As one of France's greatest treasures, the Diane Chasseresse returned to the Louvre in An VI of the French Republican calendar. It was restored once more, in 1802, by Bernard Lange.
In 1605, after the marble Roman statue had been removed from Fontainebleau, Barthélemy Prieur cast a replacement, a bronze replica which was set upon a high Mannerist marble pedestal, part of a fountain arranged by the hydraulics engineer Tommaso Francini in 1603. The fountain incorporated bronze hunting dogs and stag's heads spitting water, sculpted by, and was located in the Jardin de la Reine, with a parterre surrounded by an orangery. At the time of the French Revolution, Prieur's bronze was sent to the Louvre, but in 1813, Emperor Napoleon offered it to Empress Joséphine to decorate her Château de Malmaison. At the same time, he ordered the present bronze, a replica cast by the Keller brothers in 1684 and formerly at the Château de Marly, be placed on the fountain at Fontainebleau. Prieur's bronze was later returned to the Louvre and only in the 20th century was it brought back to Fontainebleau, where it was placed in the Galerie des Cerfs.
Other replicas
Comparable Roman replicas of the same model, noted by the Louvre's website, have been found at Leptis Magna, at Antalya and also Annaba. Besides the modern era replicas by Prieur and the Keller brothers, a full-size bronze replica was made in 1634 by Hubert Le Sueur for Charles I of England, the brother-in-law of Louis XIII. For Marly, a marble copy was executed by Guillaume Coustou in 1710. In the second half of the 18th century, numerous replicas of all sizes were created in bronze, plaster, and lead. A miniature replica of the statue stood on the fireplace mantle in the Titanic'sfirst class lounge. In 1986, Robert Ballard discovered and photographed the statue on the sea floor near the bow section of the wreck.
