Diana and Actaeon
1602
Medium
Pen and black ink and brown and blue wash over traces of black chalk
Dimensions
8 x 6 in. (20.3 x 15.3 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1939
Accession Number
39.81.3
Tags
Art Historical Context
In the intimate drawing *Diana and Actaeon (1602), Flemish artist Georg Pecham captures a dramatic moment from Ovid's *Metamorphoses*. The mythological scene depicts the chaste goddess Diana and her nymphs bathing, startled by the accidental intrusion of the hunter Actaeon.beknownst to him, this voyeuristic glimpse leads to his tragic transformation into a stag, hunted down by his own dogs—a tale of divine retribution and mortal hubris that captivated artists across centuries. Pecham's masterful use of pen and black ink, enriched with brown and blue washes over faint black chalk underdrawing,...