Diana and Actaeon

1556–59

Oil on canvas, 184.5 × 202.2 cm · National Gallery, London, and National Galleries of Scotland (shared)

One of Titian’s poesie for Philip II, designed to hang beside Diana and Callisto so the two landscapes ran on into each other. The London and Scottish national galleries bought it together in 2009.

A red curtain is pulled aside as Actaeon bursts in on the bathing goddess.
A stag’s skull on a stone pillar foretells his fate.
Diana, with a crescent in her hair, glares sideways while an attendant draws a veil.
Now shown in turn in London and Edinburgh.

The hunter Actaeon stumbled on Diana bathing. She turned him into a stag, and his own hounds tore him apart.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain