The Diana of Versailles in the Louvre Galerie des Caryatides that was designed for it
The Diana of VersaillesorArtemis, Goddess of the Hunt (French: Artémis, déesse de la chasse) is a slightly over-lifesize[1] marble statue of the Roman goddess Diana(Greek: Artemis) with a deer. It is currently located in the Musée du Louvre, Paris.[2] The statue is also known as Diana with a Doe (French: Diane à la biche), Diana Huntress (French: Diane chasseresse), and Diana of Ephesus. It is a partially restored Roman copy (1st or 2nd century AD) of a lost Greek bronze original attributed to Leochares, c. 325 BC.[3][4]
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.[5] 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. Her second toes are longer than her big toes, a condition known as Morton's toe.[6]
"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",[10] though its admirers generally confused it with the Artemis at the temple of Ephesus.[11] It was installed as the central feature of the Jardin de la Reine (today's Jardin de Diane) 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 (now the Salle des Caryatides). At the time, its restorations were revised by Barthélemy Prieur. In 1696 it was installed in the Grande Galerie (Hall of Mirrors) of VersaillesbyLouis XIV.[12] As one of France's greatest treasures, the Diane Chasseresse returned to the Louvre in An VI (1798) of the French Republican calendar (Haskell and Penny 1981:196).[13][14] It was restored once more, in 1802, by Bernard Lange.[15]
A 1684 bronze copy was installed on the garden fountain at Fontainebleau in 1813
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 Pierre Biard [Wikidata], and was located in the Jardin de la Reine, with a parterre surrounded by an orangery.[16][17]
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 (demolished 1806), 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.[17]
Comparable Roman replicas of the same model, noted by the Louvre's website, have been found at Leptis Magna (Libya), at Antalya (Turkey) and also Annaba (Algeria).[citation needed]
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.[18] 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 (Haskell and Penny 1981:197).
A miniature replica of the statue stood on the fireplace mantle in the Titanic's first class lounge. In 1986, Robert Ballard discovered and photographed the statue on the sea floor near the bow section of the wreck.[citation needed]
^"Diane à la biche", Château de Fontainebleau, Archive copy (22 April 2021); Musée du Louvre on-line catalogue, archived 18 August 2018. The archived copy at the Fontainebleau website cites a 1968 manuscript by Boris Lossky, intended for the Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire de l’art Français. Other sources (Haskell and Penny 1981, p. 196; Anonymous 1996, p. 90) give 1586 as the earliest certain date the statue is known to have been at Fontainebleau (mentioned by the Dutch traveller Van Buchell [Haskell and Penny]) and was reported in the 17th century to have come from the Château de Meudon.
^The error was forcefully refuted by Jean-Aymar Piganiol de La Force, Nouvelle description des châteaux et des parcs de Versailles et de Marly (Paris, 1713), Haskell and Penny note (1981:196).
^Anonymous 1996, p. 90: "Numerous copies of the statue from the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries attest to its popularity during that era, but the work is widely ignored today."
^Lange is also credited with the first restorations to the Venus de Milo
