Jean-Léon Gérôme

Boussod, Valadon & Cie, Paris (acquired directly from the artist, 1895)
Grand Duke Paul of St. Petersburg (acquired from the above, 1895)
Bellini, Florence
Private Collector (acquired from the above in the 1930s)
Thence by descent

Oeuvres de L. Gérôme, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, XII, 14 and 15
Jean-Léon Gérôme 1824-1904, exh. cat., Musée de Vesoul, 1981, p. 81, illustrated
Gerald M. Ackerman, The Life and Work of Jean-Léon Gérôme with a catalogue raisonné, Paris, 1986, p. 276, no. 428, illustrated (as Diana and Acteon (Hallali))
Gerald M. Ackerman, Jean-Léon Gérôme, monographie révisée, catalogue raisonné mis à jour, Paris, 2000, p. 342, no. 428, illustrated

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This work is in excellent condition. The tacking edges of the canvas have been reinforced, but the work itself is unlined. The stretcher is original. The painting is cleaned and in beautiful condition. The only retouch is in the sky above the huntsmen, where a vertical line of retouches measuring about an inch long has been applied. The highlights in the trees on the left side show very strongly under ultraviolet light, but these are not retouches. The work should be hung as is.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

From its first telling in Ovid’s Metamorphoses in 6 AD, the myth of Diana and Actaeon has been painted by generations of artists from Titian to Corot.  Standing apart from the more literal interpretations of the story is Gérôme’s Diane et Actéon of 1895, in which the artist reworks traditional tropes with his own Academic Realist style. The myth tells of Actaeon stumbling across the bathing goddess of the hunt Diana, whose retinue of nymphs attempt to cover her nakedness; her furious splashing of water eventually transforms the youth into a stag (later tracked down and killed by his own dogs). In the present work, the sequence seems to be reversed, as dawn’s light dapples the trees on the horizon, and pink jacketed riders are in hot pursuit of a stag leaping into the pond, raising the alarm of the young bathers who gather tossed-aside clothing or emerge from the water’s surface among equally startled ducks. The juxtaposition of contemporary and Classical elements in the free use of the myth points to the artist’s often overlooked wit.  Above all, a composition of nudes outdoors afforded Gérôme an opportunity to demonstrate his brilliance in painting the female form. The artist ingeniously used a glass-house studio in his summer homes of Vesoul and Bougival to carefully and discreetly study unclothed women in various poses and movements. Such studies could be combined with plein air sketches such as those the artist completed on visits in the 1890s to the Bois de Saint Cucufa, a sylvan landscape featuring a large pond to the west of Paris. The occasion for the visits is unclear, but the sketches may have informed the rolling hills and lily-padded pond of the present work and Léda et le cygne (sold in these rooms on October 13, 1993, lot 55) another fanciful portrayal of a mythological nude in nature.