Genre scene - shepherd and bathing women. Diana and Actaeon

Diana and Actaeon This painting, from the collection of the Potoccy family, the former owners of Łańcut castle, is painted on sheet copper, and depicts a mythological scene – Diana bathing, and Actaeon spying on her. The scene plays out against the backdrop of ancient ruins and landscape. Diane (naked) stands in the centre, accompanied by nymphs when she bathes – on the right-hand side, there is the stream, from which the goddess emerges, where two nymphs are bathing. There are two coats and a quiver with arrows (one of Diane’s attributes) hanging from a tree on the right. On the left side of the painting, there is Actaeon spying on the goddess, accompanied by three dogs who are showing him their teeth. Diane (Artemis) is the mythological goddess of the hunt, animals, forests, mountains and flora. She was also considered a goddess of fertility, the moon, and of death. Her attributes are the quiver and arrows, the bow, and her accompanying animal was the hind. Actaeon was a hunter, hunting days on end, together with his dogs. one day he ventured to the stream, where Diane was bathing, and started to spy on her; this angered the goddess, and she turned Actaeon into a deer as punishment; he was torn apart by his dogs. This very moment is depicted in the painting from Łańcut. The painting, by an unknown painter from the Flemish school, stems from the 17th century. It has a broad, profiled, gilded frame, decorated with two types of ornaments – at the inner edge, a bead ornament, at the outer edge, a band around a rod; it is displayed in the Pool room, on the first floor of the castle of Łańcut.