Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem

(Haarlem 1562-1638)

Diana

Footnotes

PROVENANCE:
Sale, J. Danser Nijman, Amsterdam, 16 August 1797, lot 120: 'Dit Tafereel verbeeld Diana, zij houd haar Regterhand voor haar borst, en in de Linkerhand een Boog. Het Hooft is verzierd, en een roode Sluyer hangt over haar schouder. Alles levensgoote Halverlijf, op Paneel, 28 bij 22 duim' (This scene represents Diana, holding her right hand in front of her breast and a bow in her left hand. Her head is adorned, and a red veil hangs over her shoulder. All this a life-size, half-length figure, on panel)
Revitt Collection, Northampton, circa 1850 and thence by descent to the present owner

LITERATURE:
P.J.J. van Thiel, Cornelis Cornelis van Haarlem 1562-1638 A Monograph and Catalogue Raisonné (Doornspijk, 1999), pp. 135, 342, cat. no. 124

The present work has hitherto only been known from the drawn copy in coloured chalk which Abraham Delfos (1731-1820) made in 1795 when the painting was still in the collection of Jan Danser Nijman (Amsterdam Rijkpresenten, inv. no. '18-352).

Peter van Thiel writes in his monograph on the artist that 'the depiction of Diana is perfectly in keeping with that of Venus of the year before ... although a much richer image is produced by the turning of Diana's body, the spiral-shaped twisting of the drapery, and the fluid line which runs from the shoulder via the arm to the top of the bow.'