GIOACCHINO D’ADDA
Milan, 1794 – 1829
Diana bathing
oil on canvas, cm. 112×84
Signed and dated “G. D’Adda 1817” lower right
In a vast, deep rugged chasm, a waterfall cascades over rocks, spilling into a small pond, where the goddess Diana and her nymphs indulge in a peaceful bath amidts nature. In the background, a pack of dogs is chasing a stag. This element allows us to place the scene at a specific moment in the myth of Diana and Actaeon, as narrated by Ovid in the third book of his Metamorphoses. The young hunter, having unknowingly come across the goddess while she is bathing, is transformed into a stag to prevent him from revealing what he has witnessed. However, Actaeon’s hounds, failing to recognize him in his new animal form, relentlessly chase him before ultimately ripping him apart in a tragic culmination.
This painting witnesses the widespread influence of the iconography related to this myth, previously explored by artists such as Carlo Maratta (1625–1713) and Gaspard Dughet (1615–75) (Maratta’s and Dughet’s Landscape with Diana and Actaeon, 1657-1659, Chatsworth, Devonshire Collection). Our work draws extensively on Dughet’s stylistic elements, particularly his treatment of rocky landscapes and flowing water, namely motifs that would profoundly shape the development of Romantic landscape painting in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Although the painting bears the signature “Gioacchino D’Adda,” the precise authorship remains uncertain. Nevertheless, the date inscribed by the artist offers a significant clue. It is plausible that the work was produced by the Marquis Gioacchino D’Adda, father of the more renowned Girolamo, and author of the volume “Raccolta delle migliori fabbriche, monumenti, ville, antichità di Milano e suoi dintorni” (Milan, 1820). If this attribution is correct, the painting would demonstrate the marquis’s dual role as both a writer and an amateur painter, with an artistic sensibility comparable to that of his more celebrated contemporaries.