Diana bathing

Cuylenborch Abraham van

(Utrecht c. 1610 - 1658)

Purchased in 1783 by Marcantonio Borghese, this painting was executed in 1646 by Abraham van Cuylenborch, the Dutch painter whose signature appears on the rock in the bottom left hand corner. It depicts a group of nymphs gathered around the chaste Diana, who is shown here reclining in a fantastic landscape. The composition is dominated by a large pedestal with a bas relief representing a sacred scene and a statue to which a prisoner is tied.

Object details

Commentary

This painting has been identified with the one described in the receipt that reads ‘[...] Cornelio Polembourg [sic], 3 1/12 spans wide and 2½ high, with an engraved gilded frame’. Together with other works, the panel was sold by a certain Giovanni de Rossi to Prince Marcantonio Borghese for a total sum of 670 scudi (Doc. no. 90, dated 30 January 1783, in Della Pergola 1959). It is quite probable that at that time the painter’s signature – ‘A. CUYLENBORCH 1646’ – was hidden under various layers of paint or, as Paola della Pergola (1959) suggested, that the fame of Cornelius Polembourg was such that intentionally confusing its artist made the work more valuable. Whichever hypothesis is more tenable, it is certain that the painting appears in both the Inventario Fidecommissario (1833) and the profiles by Giovanni Piancastelli (1891) with the erroneous attribution to Polembourg: the correct one was only made in 1883 following the discovery of the signature and date (Bode 1883).

Curiously missing from Leo van Puyvelde’s study of Flemish painters in Rome, the painting received its due attention when Paola della Pergola (1959) connected it to other works by the Dutch painter with the same subject, conserved today in Genoa (Diana and Callisto, private collection), Madrid (Prado Museum) and The Hague (Landscape with Diana and the Nymphs, Mauritshuis). Pursuing Della Pergola’s thesis, Luigi Salerno (1977) related the work in question to other well-known works by the artist, in particular the Grotto of Diana (formerly in the Feigen collection, New York, signed and dated 1649), a fact which indeed demonstrates Cuylenborch’s limits in varying his subjects.

Executed in 1646, the work in question shows the influence of Van Lear’s rocky grottoes, a motif developed here in a more suggestive way through the inclusion of several archaeological ruins. In fact it is this detail which connects the painting with Rome: the representation of ruins in painting was an established strategy by the 1640s, most notably in the works of Grechetto; prints and engravings of such paintings made their way to the city of Utrecht.

Antonio Iommelli