Diana and Cupid

Pompeo Batoni

1761 · Oil on canvas · European Paintings

Sir Humphrey Morice (1723–1785), son of a wealthy merchant and director of the Bank of England, commissioned this image of the goddess of hunting. It hung as a pendant, or companion piece, to Batoni’s portrait of Morice re-clining in the Roman countryside next to his dogs, rifle, and dead game. Together, the works contrast modern and ancient Rome in the manner of Giovanni Paolo Panini’s two canvases found nearby. Diana’s distinctive pose is based on a famous ancient statue of the sleeping Cretan princess Ariadne. Batoni inserts a literal tension into this otherwise staid composition with the elegantly lifted bow, which Diana withholds from Cupid.

Artist

Pompeo Batoni

Date

1761

Medium

Oil on canvas

Department

European Paintings

Credit line

Purchase, The Charles Engelhard Foundation, Robert Lehman Foundation Inc., Mrs. Haebler Frantz, April R. Axton, L. H. P. Klotz, and David Mortimer Gifts; and Gifts of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, George Blumenthal, and J. Pierpont Morgan, Bequests of Millie Bruhl Fredrick and Mary Clark Thompson, and Rogers Fund, by exchange, 1982