Diana and Endymion:
Catalogue entry

Catalogue contents

About the catalogue

Full title: Diana and Endymion
Artist: Pierre Subleyras
Inventory number: NG6592
Author: Humphrey Wine
Extracted from: The Eighteenth Century French Paintings (London, 2018)

Pierre Subleyras 1699–1749
NG 6592
Diana and Endymion

Humphrey Wine, 2018

Extracted from:

Humphrey Wine, The Eighteenth Century French Paintings (London: National Gallery Company and Yale University Press, 2018).
Humphrey Wine and Virginia Napoleone, Former Owners of the Eighteenth‐Century French Paintings in the National Gallery: Appendix to ‘The National Gallery Catalogues: The Eighteenth‐Century French Paintings’ (London: National Gallery Company, 2018).

c. 1745

Oil on canvas, 73.4 × 98.5 cm

Provenance

Posthumous sale of Charles‐Joseph Natoire, Paris, 14 December 1778 (lot 19);¹ sale of M[onsieur] B. de B. (identifiable as either a M. de Boynes,² or more probably as Claude Billard de Belisard, died before 1797),³ Paillet et Chariot, Paris, 15–19 March 1785 (lot 76, withdrawn);⁴ recorded at the property of Bélizard [sic], rue Jean‐Jacques Rousseau, 16 frimaire, an II (6 December 1793);⁵ confiscated from the house of Claude Billard de Belisard, rue Jean‐Jacques Rousseau, 26 pluviose, an III (14 February 1795);⁶ in the posthumous inventory dated 5 September–12 December 1839 of Cardinal Joseph Fesch (1763–1839) in the ‘Seconda Camera detta il Gran Guarda Mobile’, Palazzo Falconieri, Rome;⁷ recorded again in the same collection in 1841;⁸ part 3 of the posthumous sale of George Fesch, Palazzo Ricci, Rome, 17 March and following days, 1845 (lot 437, 38 scudi to Colombo);⁹ possibly acquired by Colonel Tom Naylor‐Leyland (died 1886), and in any event in the collection of Sir Herbert Scarisbick Naylor‐Leyland, 1st Bt (1864–1899), at Hyde Park House, 60 Knightsbridge, by 1898,¹⁰ and thence by inheritance to Sir Vivyan Naylor‐Leyland, 3rd Bt (1924–1987), of Hyde Park House and of Nantclwyd Hall, Ruthin, North Wales,¹¹ from where removed and sold at Christie’s, London, 17 May 1957 (lot 28, as by Huet, £315 to Scharf); bought by Mrs Robert Frank, from whom bought by Colnaghi; bought from Colnaghi for £850 as French, early eighteenth century, by Sir (Richard) Brinsley Ford (1908–1999),¹² Wyndham Place, London, and hung there in Lady Ford’s Sitting Room; accepted by HM Government in lieu of Inheritance Tax and allocated to the National Gallery, 2002.

Exhibitions

London 1959–60; London 1968 (643).

Technical Notes

The overall condition is good. There is a small, roughly circular, loss 5 cm from the left edge and 24 cm from the top, scattered losses near the top towards the left of the picture, one larger one above the wing of the putto in the top left corner, near the bottom left corner, and a number along the bottom edge, the largest of which, an irregular damage about 1 cm high, extends some 10 cm from below the body of the sleeping dog to below Endymion’s right foot. There is also a small circular loss in the drapery over Endymion’s waist. The back of the canvas shows where water once ran down it. This old water damage and a relining, probably undertaken around 1900, has affected the texture of the paint surface, but this is not apparent in normal lighting. There are retouchings made prior to the Gallery’s acquisition of the painting, in the red drapery and to the left‐hand putto, and other minor retouchings throughout. There is some wear in the horn, between Endymion’s lips and in his hair. There are age cracks, and there has been some consolidation of flaking paint.

The support is a medium fine canvas which has not been cut down, as indicated by cusping at the edges. The ground is double layered: a mid‐red‐brown, composed of red earth pigment, with some lead white, calcium carbonate, silica and black. The lower layer is somewhat darker than the upper. The mixed dark green foliage paint in the background contains Prussian blue, yellow and orange earths, yellow lake and black, among other pigments. The horn is painted over background paint and part of the dog in the right‐hand corner can be seen to have been painted over the red drapery. X‐radiography and infrared reflectography reveal many changes made during painting. Most of these occur in the main figure group, although there are some smaller changes to the putti and other parts of the background. The X‐radiograph (fig. 1) seems to show that the right leg of Endymion was first painted to the left of its final position, across from where the rump of the white dog is now seen. Clear in the X‐radiograph image is that the head of the dog on the right was first painted looking up towards Endymion’s face. The change was made after the red drapery had been painted and so part of the head is now over red. The X‐radiograph also shows something that could be interpreted as a swirl of drapery around Diana’s head, but may be just an area of thicker paint. Other changes are clearer in the infrared reflectogram (fig. 2). Diana’s head as now seen is painted over yellow drapery. Exactly where her head was first painted is unclear as the thick paint of her upper body prevents both infrared and X‐rays from giving information, but it must have been further to the left and lower. Her upper body has also been moved. An underdrawn line for her left shoulder as first painted can be seen extending from the level of her left eye as now painted to reach half‐way across the arm as now painted, which is in turn half over the arm where first painted and half over background and drapery. Endymion has also been much changed: his head has been repositioned several times, the position of both his arms have altered, his stick was first painted more upright and the hand holding it was first painted to the left of its current position. The infrared images also show that, as first painted, he had a strap diagonally across his torso, and that the drapery over his lower body and his legs has been greatly changed.

The back of the frame (an English eighteenth‐century ‘Maratta’ pine frame, cut down and oil‐gilded) bears the following labels: (1) at top left printed on white: ‘[B(?][? illegible]RIGHTON’; (2) a label, printed probably between 1922 and 1947: ‘W.J. MANSEL[L] [?] / DEPO[?T][? illegible] / [FU] [?]LHAM ROAD, LONDON S’.¹³ The stretcher bears numerous additional marks and labels. Along the top bar from left to right: (1) the remains of a label in a blue border; (2) a circular label inscribed ‘2389’; (3) in pencil: ‘Large Boudoir’; (4) in white chalk: ‘Gantry’; (5) in ink on a circular serrated [page 449][page 450] label: ‘4097’. Along the central horizontal bar from left to right: (6) a small circular label inscribed ‘175’; (7) and (8) printed and inscribed labels affixed by Christie’s and the National Gallery respectively when NG 6592 first arrived for inspection; (9) on a rectangular label, probably nineteenth‐century with a blue border, inscribed ‘8326 / 71’; (10) a printed and typed Royal Academy label affixed when NG 6592 was lent to it in 1968 (see under Exhibitions); (11) a circular label inscribed in crayon(?): ‘11’ [deleted]. Along the bottom bar from left to right: (12) on a small nineteenth‐century rectangular label with a printed blue border inscribed in ink: ‘Sir G. Naylor / Leylland / Fr.. 3’; (13) on a small rectangular label inscribed ‘4691’; (14) in black stencil: ‘TD14’; (15) on a small rectangular label inscribed ‘216’. (16) On the left‐hand vertical bar, inscribed in white chalk now in part removed following removal of brown paper once affixed to the back of the stretcher: ‘TD148 OMP’. (17) Along the right‐hand vertical bar, inscribed in crayon (?): ‘No 71’ (and faintly) ‘Leyland’ (?).

**Fig. 1**
X‐radiograph detail of NG 6592. © The National Gallery, London

**Fig. 2**
Infrared reflectogram detail of NG 6592. © The National Gallery, London

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Detail from NG 6592. © The National Gallery, London

[page 452]

Discussion

This painting was first attributed to Subleyras by Anthony M. Clark in 1960, an attribution endorsed by Pierre Rosenberg and Olivier Michel in the catalogue of the 1987 Subleyras exhibition,¹⁴ and by Alastair Laing in the catalogue of the Brinsley Ford collection.¹⁵ That the painting is an autograph work of Subleyras is now beyond question, although Clark’s dating of it to the 1730s is less certain. That matter is discussed below.

According to Ovid (Ars Amatoria, III: 83), Selene, the Greek goddess of the moon who in ancient times became conflated with the Roman goddess Diana, would visit the beautiful shepherd Endymion every night while he was in his sleep, a sleep which, according to Cicero (Tusculanarum Quaestionum, I: 38) she had induced so that she might enjoy him undisturbed.¹⁶ A fresh translation into French of Cicero’s work was published in 1732 with two further editions published during Subleyras’s lifetime.¹⁷ Subleyras, however, would have had no need to read these ancients, or any of the others who referred to the myth of the besotted goddess, because the story was one so often depicted by artists that he could scarcely have failed to know its constituent pictorial parts: the nude, or near nude, Diana hovering near to a similarly unclad young shepherd holding a staff, one or more dogs, and sometimes sheep, all in a dusky, bosky setting, overseen by putti.¹⁸ Most of these elements appear, for example, in Annibale Carracci’s rendering of the subject in the Palazzo Farnese, Rome, the city where Subleyras went as a student in 1728, although he might already have seen prints of Carracci’s composition.¹⁹ Painted renderings of the story by French contemporaries were also available in Paris and Versailles: for example, a painting by Jean Restout commissioned in 1724 for the Hôtel du Grand Maître at Versailles (Versailles, Hôtel de Ville),²⁰ one by Jean‐François de Troy exhibited at the 1725 Salon (whereabouts unknown),²¹ another by François Boucher (private collection, France) dated about 1726 by Laing,²² and a painting made in the same year by Michel‐François Dandré‐Bardon (San Francisco, Legion of Honor Museum).²³ Consequently, when Subleyras left Paris for Rome he might have been expected to be sufficiently familiar with visual renderings of the story that he had no need to refer to specific sources, and a degree of coincidence between NG 6592 and the compositions of other artists is only to be expected. This applies, for example, to Francesco Trevisani’s Luna and Endymion to which NG 6592 has been compared, but in this case any resemblance between them is certainly coincidental since Trevisani’s painting was in Germany before Subleyras arrived in Rome.²⁴ On the other hand, once Subleyras had arrived, Annibale Carracci’s fresco in the Palazzo Farnese might have served as a check list of the necessary, and possible, iconographic elements of the subject, one of which, for example, was a putto with a silencing finger held to his mouth. This was an element not common to all renderings of the subject, but was for example included in a print of 1701 by Meloni after Franceschini (fig. 3).²⁵ It might also have been difficult for Subleyras to ignore the Barberini Faun (the appearance of which at the time was recorded in an engraving published in 1704) as a template for the reclining male nude (fig. 4). Besides its celebrity – indeed, because of it – Subleyras’s near contemporary, Edme Bouchardon, a student at the Académie de France in Rome whose time there overlapped with that of Subleyras, was engaged in making a marble copy when Subleyras arrived.²⁶ There is a resemblance between the torso and left arm of the Barberini Faun and those of Subleyras’s Endymion as well as between their respective postures of abandonment – somewhat different to the potentially more alert ‘head in hand, resting on his elbow’ posture of Annibale’s figure which would be adopted by a number of artists.²⁷ The ultimate source for Endymion’s head, however, might not have been the Faun but rather the Dying Alexander (Florence, Uffizi) – or more likely one of its many copies or painted derivatives.²⁸

**Fig. 3**
Francesco Antonio Meloni after Marcantonio Franceschini, *Diana and Endymion*, 1701. Etching and engraving, 33.1 × 38.7 cm. Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense. ROME Biblioteca Casanatense © Biblioteca Casanatense, Rome

It would be wrong, however, to suggest that NG 6592 was started soon after Subleyras’s arrival in Rome, even though the concept of a divine figure above, and in close relationship to, a sleeping male was one on which Subleyras had already worked on around 1717 in The Dream of Saint Joseph (Tours, Musée des Beaux‐Arts, inv. RF 1985‐75). From a stylistic point of view, as Laing has pointed out,²⁹ NG 6592 must post‐date Psyche contemplating the Sleeping Cupid (sold Christie’s, Paris, 21 June 2012, lot 49, present whereabouts unknown), painted in 1732,³⁰ in which the composition of the head and torso of Cupid is even more reminiscent than NG 6592 of the Barberini Faun, and is likely to be not earlier than 1737, when Subleyras painted The Feast in the House of Simon Levi (Paris, Louvre). The treatment of Diana’s hands and of Endymion’s drapery is consistent with that of the hands and draperies in Subleyras’s portrait of his wife, Maria Felice Tibaldi (Worcester MA, Worcester Art [page 453] Museum, inv. 1901.54), which can be reasonably dated to around the date of their marriage in March 1739.³¹ Other evidence points to NG 6592 having been painted slightly later, that is around 1740. Terence Hodgkinson noted the similarity between NG 6592 and a marble group of Diana and Endymion by René‐Michel (called Michel‐Ange) Slodtz (fig. 5).³² Souchal has dated Slodtz’s group to 1735–40,³³ and in a letter of 1787 Thomas Jefferson noted having seen it on a visit to the château de Laye‐Epinaye, calling it ‘a very superior morsel of sculpture by Michael Angelo Slodtz, done in 1740’.³⁴ Slodtz and Subleyras had both arrived in Rome in the autumn of 1728 as pensionnaires of the Académie de France in Rome. Together they had participated in staging a carnival in 1735,³⁵ and their continuing friendship is documented in March 1739 when Slodtz formally witnessed that Subleyras was free to marry.³⁶ Almost certainly they remained friends thereafter, since both were elected members of the Accademia dell’Arcadia (a Roman literary society which had the status of a cultural elite), Subleyras in 1743 and Slodtz the following year.³⁷

**Fig. 4**
Robert van Audenaerde, *The Barberini Faun*, from Maffei’s *Raccolta di statue*, 1704. Engraving. Los Angeles, The Getty Research Institute. LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA J. Paul Getty Museum © The Getty Research Institute

One might suppose, therefore, that NG 6592 and Slodtz’s marble group were a friendly paragone, suggesting a date for the former of 1740 or soon after. It is, however, worth considering a later date, given the sophistication of the painting in which perfect forms combine with both a superbly balanced composition and a controlled delicacy of sentiment expressed in the softest of touches by Diana on Endymion’s cheek. Subleyras’s fellow Arcadian Michele Giuseppe Morei called him a ‘Pussino moderno’.³⁸ This comment may have been based on Morei’s perception of Subleyras’s treatment of religious subjects, because Subleyras painted mythological subjects relatively infrequently.³⁹ For that reason, the subject of Diana and Endymion, a subject which found some favour in Arcadian iconography,⁴⁰ may have been painted around 1743 when Subleyras was elected as an Arcadian. The first successful Arcadian pastoral drama was Alessandro Guidi’s Diana ed Endimione (1691), which was intended as an allegory for the workings of divine Christian love, something which, however, it is difficult to see in the sensuousness of NG 6592,⁴¹ and in any event the pastoral drama as a genre was abandoned by the Arcadians in 1703 in favour of tragic drama and pastoral tragedy,⁴² both of which appear foreign to the sentiment of Subleyras’s painting. Nevertheless, although NG 6592 does not precisely follow the imagined monologue of Diana of Arcadian Pietro Metastasio in his Endimione (1720), it does share with it the inclusion of running water, something that was foreign to many other paintings and prints of the subject.⁴³ In addition, NG 6592 is linked to Arcadianism in its mood of restraint, and in its balance between poetic invention on the one hand and verisimilitude on the other it conforms to an ideal of ‘Arcadian classicism’ that was promoted in Rome by the Accademia dell’Arcadia.⁴⁴ This of itself might support a date for NG 6592 later than 1740, but it also worth noting that, firstly, Subleyras’s use of concentrated areas of deep [page 454] primary colours among predominant greys and browns, as well as the emotional serenity of the work, recall his Saint Camillo de Lellis saving the Sick of the Hospital of Spirito Santo from the Tiber’s Floodwaters (fig. 6), a painting he completed in the summer of 1746,⁴⁵ and, secondly, that the pose of the sick man being carried at the right is close to that of Endymion. Also completed that year was The Vision of Saint Camillo de Lellis in the Chiesa del Santissimo Crocifisso, Rieti (the modello of which was sold at Christie’s, London, 6 July 1990, lot 97), in which the group of angel and saint is close both in composition and sentiment to that of Diana and Endymion.⁴⁶ Finally, in The Mass of Saint Basil, commissioned in 1743 but not completed until 1747, the features of the Emperor Valens closely resemble those of Endymion in both the modello (fig. 7) and the altarpiece itself.⁴⁷ NG 6592 has rightly been called ‘a work of perfect accomplishment’,⁴⁸ and one which therefore might be expected to have been painted at the height of Subleyras’s career, but given his heavy commitments in 1746 a slightly earlier date is suggested here.⁴⁹

**Fig. 5**
René‐Michel Slodtz, called Michel‐Ange Slodtz, *Diane and Endymion*, 1735–40. Marble, H. 85 cm. Geneva, Private collection. PRIVATE COLLECTIONS © Courtesy of the owners

**Fig. 6**
Pierre Subleyras, *Saint Camillo de Lellis saving the Sick of the Hospital of Spirito Santo from the Tiber’s Floodwaters*, 1746. Oil on canvas, 205 × 280 cm. Rome, Museo di Roma. ROME Museo di Roma © akg‐images / Pirozzi

General References

Dimier 1928–30, vol. 2 (1930), p. 79, no. 81 (catalogue entries on Subleyras by Odette Arnaud);⁵⁰ Rosenberg and Michel 1987, p. 205, p. 18 (ill. p. 19); Herrmann 1998, vol. 2, pp. 151–2 (entry by Alastair Laing) and pls 10 and 73; Re:Source 2002, pp. 37–8; National Gallery Review 2003, p. 16 (ill. p. 17) (note by Humphrey Wine).

[page 455]

**Fig. 7**
Pierre Subleyras, Modello for *The Mass of Saint Basil*, 1746. Oil on canvas, 137 × 79 cm. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Wrightsman Fund, 2007. NEW YORK The Metropolitan Museum of Art © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Notes

1 Where described as: ‘PIERRE SUBLEYRAS / Peint sur toile, large 36 pouces, haut 27. / Diane & Endymion: ce Tableau, dont l’effet de nuit est parfaitement entendu, est enrichie de différens accessoires analogues au sujet; le fond est un Paysage.’ The metric equivalents of the measurements in the catalogue are about 97.5 cm wide × 73.1 cm high.

Gabriel‐Jacques de Saint‐Aubin made a sketch of the composition at the bottom right of p. 9 of his copy of the catalogue, which is now in the Bibliothèque nationale, Paris. A facsimile of the sale catalogue with Saint‐Aubin’s sketches is contained in Dacier 1913. Natoire’s sale included 14 other works by Subleyras, incorporated in lot 18 and lots 20–5 inclusive. For commentary on these works, see Dacier 1913, pp. 46–7. The circumstances of Natoire’s acquisition of NG 6592 are unknown. Susanna Caviglia‐Brunel has suggested that Subleyras may have given the painting to Natoire when they were both students in Rome (email of 20 February 2012). However, Natoire left Rome in October 1728 – that is, within no more than a few weeks of Subleyras arriving: Montaiglon and Guiffrey 1887–1912, vol. 7 (1897), pp. 460–3. In addition, NG 6592 is stylistically too mature a work to have been executed at this time. It is more likely that Natoire did not acquire it until after his arrival in Rome, as Director of the Académie de France in Rome in 1751, which was two years after Subleyras’s death, as Emile Dacier assumed (Dacier 1913, p. 46). (Back to text.)

2 Nicolas Lesur has kindly suggested (email of 25 March 2012) that the seller was De Boynes. The scanned copy at the RKD is inscribed ‘De Boynes’, but it is also inscribed ‘Belisair [illegible] [? illegible]’ on the title page in a different hand, and ‘Belisarde’ in yet another hand. De Boynes, if he was the seller, was presumably Pierre‐Etienne Bourgeois de Boynes, Secretary of State for the Navy (1771–4), resident at the hôtel de Mondragon, Paris, and the château de Mousseaux at Boynes (Loiret). Olivier Bourgeois de Boynes has kindly advised me that he was succeeded as the head of the family by Amand‐Louis‐François Bourgeois de Boynes, but that he has no information about NG 6592 (email of 3 April 2012). However, since the picture was later confiscated from Belisard, it seems much more likely that it was he who put the picture up for sale in 1785. For the identification of the vendor as Claude Billard de Belisard (active 1722–1790), see also GPI databases. (Back to text.)

3 It has been suggested that Belisard (of whose name there are variant spellings) may have been an artist and former pupil of Doyen. He owned a red chalk drawing by Doyen that was connected to the Cybele, which Doyen appears to be in the course of executing in the portrait made of him by Antoine Vestier and exhibited at the 1787 Salon (now Paris, Louvre). Belisard also had a collection of 38 etchings by Denon and Dazincourt, and two volumes of prints of designs for candelabra, vases and ornaments: Pages‐Bordes 1994–5, pp. 20–1, 39. Among his friends were the Cosways: [Trumbull] 1953, pp. 107, 111. For the date of Belisard’s death, see Saur Allgemeines Künstler‐Lexicon 1994, p. 390, which gives a summary of his career as an architect. (Back to text.)

4 Described as ‘Pierre Subleyras. Diane & Endimion; dans la partie supérieure de ce tableau, on voit cette Déesse qui vient visiter ce Berger dont elle est éprise: il est endormi au milieu de ses chiens qui veillent à sa garde; des Amours qui sont sur des nuages président à ce mystere; cette action silencieuse est éclairée par l’astre de la Lune qui répand une douce lumière sur l’action des passions de cette Divinité & sur des cascades qui embelissent ce beau lieu. Le corps nud du Berger & ses draperies sont peints avec ce suave [sic] & cette grace qui étoient le partage des talens de ce Maître; tout est rendu; jusque dans les moindres accessoires, avec la plus grande vérité; ce tableau qui est au dessus de tous les éloges que nous pourrions en faire, à [sic] 36 pouces de large, sur 26 pouces 9 lignes de haut. Il vient de la vente des effets de feu [page 456]M. Natoire, faite à Paris par M. Alizard, no. 19 du Catalogue.’

In addition to NG 6592, the sale of 15–19 March 1785 included three studies of heads by Subleyras (lot 77, sold in two parts). One of these studies may be that in the Musée Fesch, Ajaccio (inv. 852‐1‐959): Rosenberg and Michel 1987. The study in Ajaccio was one of four paintings by Subleyras confiscated from the house of the émigré Billard de Belisard on 14 February 1795, the others being another study of a head of a bearded old man without any headgear, a study of a turbaned woman (most likely that now in Vesoul, Musée Georges‐Garret, on deposit by the Louvre, inv. 9969) and NG 6592: ibid. ., nos 12 and 37. (Back to text.)

5 ‘Registre de Réception des Objets d’Art et Antiquités trouvés chez les Emigrés et Condamnés, an II’ ( INHA , Ms. 1031, AN , F17‐23A), fol. 321, item 13: ‘Diane et Endémion accompagne [sic] de deux amours, hauteur 30 pces sur 36, sur toile (Subleyras)’. (Back to text.)

6 Furcy‐Raynaud 1912, p. 257, where described as ‘Diane et Endymion, accompagnés de deux amours, sur toile, de Subleyras. / H. 30 p.; L. 36 p.’ (Back to text.)

7 ‘Descrizione estimativa di tutti gli effetti ereditarj della ch: me: del card. Giuseppe Fesch’, fol. 171v, where described as ‘Quadro in tela alto piedi due, e mezzo, largo piedi tre rappresentate Diane ed Endimione di Subleigas [sic] scudi Dieci 10’: Getty Research Institute, Archival Inventory I‐1833 (consulted online 21 February 2012). The date of acquisition of NG 6592 by Fesch is unknown. It is not among the paintings listed in a catalogue of a sale from his collection of 17 June and following days, 1816, Catalogue de tableaux des trois école… (Perignon 1816), but it was apparently brought by Fesch from France (see note 9), and so presumably in August 1815 when, as an exile, he leased the Palazzo Falconieri, Rome. For Fesch and his exile in Rome, see Costamagna 2007, p. 20. (Back to text.)

8 Catalogue des tableaux composant la galerie de feu son eminence le Cardinal Fesch, Rome 1841, p. 41, no. 844, there measured (in part inaccurately) as ‘2 pieds 6 pouces de hauteur, 3 pieds de largeur’ (approx. 81.2 × 97.5 cm). (Back to text.)

9 Where described as follows: ‘Endormi sur des rochers qu’ombrage un grand arbre, le berger à demi‐nu n’est préservé du contact de la pierre que par les replis de deux draperies, blanche et rouge, qui recouvrent ses genoux. Diane, que des nuages soutiennent au‐dessus de son amant, essaie en vain de l’arracher à son long sommeil, en touchant de son doigt divin sa tête appuyée contre son sein: deux amours voltigent à quelque distance. / Dans ce tableau, le pinceau se montre moëlleux et facile, le coloris, agréable et harmonieux. On peut se faire une idée du mérite du peintre, par la belle mosaïque qui orne l’autel de saint Basile à Saint‐Pierre: elle a été executée d’après un des ses ouvrages. / T.[oile] H.[auteur] 2 p.[ieds] 3 p.[ouces] 5 l.[ignes] L.[argeur] 3 p.[ieds] 0 p.[ouces] 9 l.[ignes]’.

The work is numbered 437–844, the latter number corresponding to the number in the 1841 inventory, and is asterisked, meaning that the painting was brought from France by Fesch and so vested with all ‘droits de sortie’: see Conditions de la vente (n.p.) in George, Catalogue des Tableaux de la galerie de feu S.E. le Cardinal Fesch … Première Partie (1843). On this last matter, following the sale of part of Fesch’s collection in 1843, The Times reported that ‘On having [works of art] brought to him in Rome, he took care to secure from the Pontifical Government free liberty for their being at any time exported again from Italy’ (‘The Gallery of Cardinal Fesch. – The sale of’, The Times, 11 December 1843).

Other works by Subleyras once owned by Cardinal Fesch were Head of a Man in a Turban, Job on the Dunghill and Portrait of Pietro Francesco Cornazzano (all in Ajaccio, Musée Fesch, and there numbered 852‐1‐959, 852‐1‐270 and 852‐1‐259 respectively): see Roche 1993, pp. 190–2; for the portrait of Cornazzano, see also Rosenberg and Michel 1987, no. 13.

Little is known of Colombo. He was probably the Nazarene painter (and later restorer) Giovanni Colombo (about 1784–1853), resident for most of his life in Rome (information kindly supplied by Aidan Weston‐Lewis and Peter Humfrey). I am grateful to Burton Fredericksen for advising me of two references to Colombo in Waagen 1854, vol. 3, pp. 314–15. According to these, Colombo and Irvine advised Capt. Stirling (who was an MP and had a residence at Glentyan, Renfrewshire) on acquisitions, but none of the (mostly Italian) pictures mentioned by Waagen in this context could be NG 6592. Waagen also mentions that Colombo had advised ‘Mr. Erskine’ of Linlathen, near Dundee – presumably Thomas Erskine, who was Stirling’s brother‐in‐law. Fredericksen also advised that Colombo was acquainted with another Scotsman, the antiquary, art collector and author James Dennistoun, who referred to Colombo as ‘a most respectable & trustworthy man’. None of the auction catalogues connected with these individuals that I have been able to check in the British Library, or the libraries of the Courtauld Institute and National Gallery, includes any picture likely to be NG 6592. (Back to text.)

10 In a letter of 30 January 2001 to Francis Russell from Sir Philip Naylor‐Leyland, 4th Bt, which Russell kindly copied to me, Naylor‐Leyland wrote: ‘1. My father [the vendor in 1957] is most unlikely to have bought the painting and then sold it. / 2. My grandfather [Sir Albert Edward Herbert Naylor‐Leyland, 2nd Bt (1890–1952)] was not known as an art collector. / 3. My great‐grandfather, the first Baronet [Sir Herbert Scarisbrick Naylor‐Leyland (1864–1899)], had a noted art collection at Nantclwyd and at Hyde Park House in London, mainly inherited from his father Colonel Tom Naylor‐Leyland, who was a collector.’

The following information is derived from British History Online. Knightsbridge North Side: Parkside to Albert Gate Court for which see http://www.british‐history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=45902 (accessed 23 February 2012). Hyde Park House is now demolished and the site of the Royal Thames Yacht Club. It was designed by Thomas Cubitt on the commission of Thomas Naylor‐Leyland, one of three wealthy brothers who derived their wealth from Liverpool banking interests. The house was begun in 1852 but not occupied by Naylor‐Leyland until 1858. On the first floor was his picture gallery, top‐lit with a mirrored end‐wall to give the impression of a room twice its length. An article, ‘Lady Naylor‐Leyland at Hyde Park House’ (1898), in describing the collection of pictures, refers to ‘a Huet, “Diana and Endymion”, with the blues and reds so characteristic of the master’ (p. 230). It is not possible to discern any picture that might be the Subleyras from the poor‐quality photograph of the gallery in this article, but given the description of NG 6592 when it was sold in 1957, it must be the ‘Huet’ seen in 1898. (Back to text.)

11 For Nantclwyd Hall, see Hubbard 1994, pp. 204–5, according to which the house was doubled in size after Richard Christopher Naylor made it over to his nephew, Tom Naylor‐Leyland. (Back to text.)

12 For Sir Brinsley Ford’s collecting activities, see his own account in Herrmann 1998, vol. 1, pp. 91–113, and passim by other authors in the same volume. (Back to text.)

13 An entry in the 1902 edition of Kelly’s Commercial Trades Directory reads: ‘Mansell, William John, upholsterer, 266 & 266A, Fulham Road SW & 2A Redcliffe Gardens SW.’ The firm was listed as furniture brokers and fixture dealers, as well as upholsterers, for the first time in 1922, and continued to be so listed until 1947. No entry for it exists after that date. I am grateful to Sally Korman for this information. (Back to text.)

14 For Sir Brinsley Ford’s amusing account of the various attributions made by different art historians, see Herrmann 1998, pp. 115–17, in which he begins: ‘With an unattributed picture of such beauty, I was in a position to victimise every art historian who came to Wyndham Place by seeking his or her opinion.’ The attribution of NG 6592 as an autograph work by Subleyras was also accepted by Philip Conisbee in his review of the 1987 exhibition (Conisbee 1987). (Back to text.)

15 See under General References. (Back to text.)

16 In a passage concerning the nature of death and sleep, Cicero wrote: ‘Endymion, indeed, if you listen to fables, slept once on a time, on Latmus, a mountain of Caria, and for such a length of time that I imagine he is not as yet awake. Do you think that he is concerned at the Moon’s being in difficulties, though it was by her that he was thrown into that sleep, in order that she might kiss him while sleeping; for what should he be concerned for who has not even any sensation?’, in Cicero 1865 edn, ‘On the contempt of death’, para. XXXVIII, p. 325. This version of the tale is one of a number summarised in Cartari 1580, pp. 125–6. As Judith Colton has pointed out (1967, pp. 426–7), no ancient author provided a locus classicus of the myth, which was long identified with the themes of love, sleep and death, and immortality. Cartari did not follow Ovid’s Amores, I, xiii, 43, which says nothing of Selene/Diana’s purpose in sending Endymion to sleep. (Back to text.)

17 Cicero 1732 edn. The edition published in 1747 was expressed to be the third. Possibly that published in 1737 was the second, but it may have been a reprint of the first. By contrast, I have been unable to trace any translation into French or Italian made during Subleyras’s lifetime of Lucian’s Dialogues of the Gods, no. 19 of which contains the following words of Selene in reply to Aphrodite’s question as to whether Endymion is handsome: ‘Most handsome, I think, my dear; you should see him when he has spread out his cloak on the rock and is asleep; his javelins in his left hand, just slipping from his grasp, the right arm bent upwards, making a bright frame to the face, and he breathing softly in helpless slumber. Then I come noiselessly down, treading on tiptoe not to wake and startle him – but there, you know all about it; why tell you the rest? I am dying of love, that is all’ (Lucian of Samosata 1905 edn). (Back to text.)

18 For an indication of the frequency with which artists treated the theme, see Pigler 1974, vol. 2, pp. 160–4. (Back to text.)

19 Jaques Bellay made a print of Carracci’s composition in 1641, and Nicolas Mignard by 1668. Carracci’s composition was the subject of a print ([Bartsch] 1978–90, vol. 47 [1987: Commentary, part 1], no. 22) by Carlo Cesio (1622?–1682), part of a series by Cesio after [page 457]the Galleria Farnese paintings first published in Rome before 1657. For this and engravings by others after the Farnese Gallery paintings, see Bartsch 1978–90, vol. 47 (1987: Commentary, part 1), pp. 78–9. (Back to text.)

20 Gouzi 2000, p. 20 (and p. 21 for an autograph replica in the Snite Museum of Art, Notre Dame IN). (Back to text.)

21 Leribault 2002, p. 118. On account of its size, that painting cannot be identified with a picture of the same subject by Jean‐François de Troy offered at V. de Muizon & D. Le Coënt, Senlis, 16 June 2011 (lot 54). (Back to text.)

22 Laing 1986, pp. 103–4 and fig. 77. (Back to text.)

23 See Chol 1987, no. 3. (Back to text.)

24 See Alastair Laing in Herrmann 1998, p. 152, and DiFederico 1977, no. 45 and pl. 37. (Back to text.)

25 Bartsch 1978–90, vol. 47 (1987: Commentary, part 1), no. 43 (459), and Miller 1991, no. 9 and pls 29, 31 and 34. (Back to text.)

26 Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 202–5. Bouchardon’s marble (inv. MR 1921) was completed in July 1730 and was sent to the Louvre and placed in the Salle des Antiques in 1731. He had started work on it by June 1726: Montaiglon and Guiffrey 1887–1912, vol. 7 (1897), p. 270. (Back to text.)

27 The words cited are from Michel de Marolles’ Tableaux du Temple des Muses, a work itself cited by Colin Bailey in his catalogue entry for Fragonard’s ‘conventional’ treatment of Diana and Endymion: Bailey and Hamilton 1991, no. 60. (Back to text.)

28 On the Dying Alexander, see Haskell and Penny 1981, pp. 134–5. (Back to text.)

29 Herrmann 1998, vol. 2, pp. 151–2 (entry by Alastair Laing). (Back to text.)

30 Peintures et sculptures de maîtres anciens 1986, no. 8; and Rosenberg and Michel 1987, p. 153. (Back to text.)

31 For the portrait of Maria Felice Tibaldi see Rosenberg and Michel 1987, no. 63 (catalogue entry by Olivier Michel and Pierre Rosenberg). (Back to text.)

32 Hodgkinson 1969. (Back to text.)

33 Souchal 1967 (reviewed in Hodgkinson 1969), pp. 659–60. The date has been accepted by Olga Raggio in her review of Souchal’s book: Raggio 1974, p. 137. (Back to text.)

34 Jefferson 1829, vol. 2, p. 120. In a letter to the comtesse de Tessé, written from Nîmes and dated 20 March 1787, Jefferson wrote ( ibid. , pp. 101–2): ‘Here I am, Madam, gazing whole hours at the Maison quarrée, like a lover at his mistress … This is the second time I have been in love since I left Paris [on, or soon after, 28 February 1787]. The first was with a Diana at the château de Laye‐Epinaye in Beaujolais, a delicious morsel of sculpture, by M.A. Slodtz.’ (Back to text.)

35 Souchal 1967, p. 64. On Jean‐Baptiste‐Marie Pierre’s etching of the ‘Chinese’ procession in the carnival, see Couturier 2011, no. 76 (entry by Françoise Joulie), and Lesur and Aaron 2009, G.1, p. 478. (Back to text.)

36 O. Michel 1996, pp. 39–40 and figs 3–5. The other witness was Louis‐Gabriel Blanchet. (Back to text.)

37 When elected to the Accademia, Slodtz took the name ‘Pariso Aranziaco’, and Subleyras the name ‘Protogiste’. For their dates of admission to the Accademia, see O. Michel 1996, pp. 95–107, and pp. 106–7. On the Accademia and its role in eighteenth‐century Roman cultural life, see Liliana Barroero and Stefano Susinno, ‘Arcadian Rome, universal capital of the arts’, in Bowron and Rishel 2000, pp. 47–75. (Back to text.)

38 Giornale delle belle arti 1786, p. 187. According to the editor of the weekly Giornale, Morei’s account of Subleyras’s life was written in 1764 but not previously published. It was published in three parts in 1786, namely in no. 20, pp. 156–7; no. 21, pp. 162–4; and no. 22, pp. 170–3. For Morei, see DBI, vol. 76 (2012), ‘Morei, Michele Giuseppe’ (entry by Marco Catucci). (Back to text.)

39 The extant paintings in this genre, besides NG 6592, are: Cupid and Psyche (sold Christie’s, Paris, 21 June 2012, lot 49, present whereabouts unknown); The Barque of Charon (Paris, Louvre, inv. 8007); a sketch in a London private collection (ill. Rosenberg and Michel 1987, p. 75) for the Hercules and Prometheus shown among the paintings in Subleyras’s The Artist’s Studio (Vienna, Akademie der Bildenden Künste Wien); and Achilles among the Daughters of Lycomedes, 99.06 × 134.62 cm (Sotheby’s, New York, 30 January 1997, lot 69). Another version of the subject, 190 × 134 cm, said to be by Subleyras, was bought in at Finarte Casa d’Aste, Venice, 16 May 2009, lot 613. Since the 1987 exhibition the following paintings of mythological subjects described as ‘by Subleyras’ have been sold: Naufragio di Ulisse, oil on paper laid down, 76.2 × 55.88 cm (Finarte Casa d’Aste, Rome, 22 November 1988, lot 181), and Satyr and bacchante with tambourine before the altar of the god Terminus, 40.64 × 30.48 cm (Christie’s, London, 7 July 1989, lot 76), of which there is an autograph version in Douai, Musée de la Chartreuse, inv. 2789, 41.5 × 32 cm. On the Douai picture, see Nicolas Lesur in Jean Barbault 2010, who writes (p. 184) that there are several known versions of this composition, which was in part inspired by an etching of 1642 by Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione. The whereabouts of Subleyras’s Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne, the composition of which is known through an etching by Pierre‐Ignace Parrocel, are unknown. It possibly belongs to Subleyras’s years in Paris, given its apparent derivation from Watteau’s Triumph of Ceres (itself now only known through Louis Crépy’s print after it, published in 1729). In 1757 a Vénus couchée, said to be by Subleyras and belonging to the Paris tailor Etienne Marchèse, was in the possession of the master painter Jérôme‐François Chantereau: Guiffrey 1885, p. 244. In 1936 Ferdinand Boyer noted a Jupiter and Antiope in the Palazzo Sindici, Rome (Boyer 1936, p. 213), but Odette Arnaud in Dimier 1928–30, vol. 2 (1930), no. 79, noted the picture as with M.A.L. Nicholson, London. A painting of Hercules and Omphale on the London art market in 1967 was attributed to Subleyras by Federico Zeri (www.fe.fondazionezeri.unibo.it). Finally, a copy by Subleyras after Titian’s Venus and Adonis was in the posthumous sale of Subleyras’s patron, the duc de Saint‐Aignan: Le Moël and Rosenberg 1969, p. 62. (Back to text.)

40 Liliana Barroero and Stefano Susinno, cited in note 37, in Bowron and Rishel 2000, p. 53; Souchal 1967, p. 191. (Back to text.)

41 The imperfect Endymion is rendered perfectible when succumbing to the affections of Diana: Dixon 2006, pp. 32–3. For a sixteenth‐century interpretation of the myth which equates Endymion with ‘l’âme de l’homme de bien, que les celestes de grande amour qu’ils lui portent desirent baiser & joindre’, see Agapiou 2005, p. 121. (Back to text.)

42 Dixon 2006. (Back to text.)

43 Metastasio 1758, pp. 14–15: ‘What have we here? A Forrester / Stretch’d fast asleep along the flow’ry Bank / Of this clear placid Stream; if I mistake not, One of my Train too! – in profound Repose / Quite swallow’d up, how sweetly doth he breathe! / Those twining Shoots which, leafy, shade his Face; / That prattling Rill which, hollow‐murmuring sooths / His gentle Slumber, and just licks his Foot; / That little wanton Breeze which fans and scatters, / Entangling, his curl’d Locks; ye Gods! What Graces / Do they contribute to his beauteous Form! // Ah sportive Zephyrs, who around him play, / For pity, wake him not. What strange Emotions / Rise in my Bosom, whilst I gaze upon him! / A Pleasure which delights at once and pains me.’ (Back to text.)

44 For the aesthetic underlying the Accademia, see Liliana Barroero and Stefano Susinno, cited in note 37, in Bowron and Rishel 2000, p. 47. (Back to text.)

45 On this painting, see Bowron and Rishel 2000, no. 287 (entry by Pierre Rosenberg), and Lo Bianco and Negro 2005, no. 156 (entry by Rossella Leone). (Back to text.)

46 The modello was exhibited in London 1968 (Sutton 1968, no. 651, fig. 244) and illustrated in Rosenberg and Michel 1987, p. 322, fig. 3. (Back to text.)

47 The altarpiece was commissioned for St Peter’s, Rome. It was replaced by a mosaic in 1751, and the painting sent to Santa Maria degli Angeli. The painting omits the pair of cherubim found in front of the column at the centre of the modello. (Back to text.)

48 Alastair Laing in Herrmann 1998, vol. 2, p. 152. (Back to text.)

49 Nicolas Lesur has in the context of NG 6592 kindly drawn my attention to Francesco Solimena’s Diana and Endymion in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, where it is dated about 1705–10. It is not known whether the Liverpool painting was in Naples when Subleyras visited in 1745–6 – something that could support an argument for dating NG 6592 to that period. While the two paintings share a number of the usual iconographic elements, there is in my view insufficient compositional resemblance to justify a view that Subleyras might have had the Solimena in mind when painting his composition. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that Solimena was an adherent of the Neapolitan branch of the Accademia dell’Arcadia and that his painting and that of Subleyras share both a refined classicism and a mood of elegiac poetry. (Back to text.)

50 Arnaud records two compositions of the subject by Subleyras, one measuring 75 × 99 cm from the Fesch collection, and the other measuring 81 × 97 cm confiscated from ‘Belhsard [sic], émigré’, but, since the painting in the 1785 sale had measurements closely corresponding to those of the painting recorded in 1841 in the Fesch collection, the two paintings must be one and the same. One must assume that in those cases in which the painting’s height was recorded as much as some 6 cm greater than it is, an original error was simply copied without the measurements being checked. The alternative would be the unlikely occurrence of two paintings by the same artist of the same subject in the same (Belisard) collection. (Back to text.)

Abbreviations

AN: Allgemeines Künstler Lexikon
GPI: Getty Provenance Index https://piprod.getty.edu/starweb/pi/servlet.starweb?path=pi/pi.web
INHA: Institut national d’histoire de l’art, Paris
RKD: The Netherlands Institute for Art History (Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie), The Hague. Artists database, Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague (online), 2000– (https://rkd.nl/en/explore/artists)

Technical abbreviations

Macro‐XRF: Macro X‐ray fluorescence
XRD: X‐ray powder diffraction

List of archive references cited

Los Angeles, Getty Research Institute, Archival Inventory I‐1833: Descrizione estimativa di tutti gli effetti ereditarj della ch: me: del card. Giuseppe Fesch
Paris, Institut national d’histoire de l’art, Bibliothèque, Ms. 1031: Registre de Réception des Objets d’Art et Antiquités trouvés chez les Emigrés et Condamnés, an II (Archives nationales, F17‐23A)

List of references cited

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Arnaud 1930: Arnaud, Odette, in Les peintres français du XVIIIe siècle, histoire des vies et catalogue des oeuvres, ed. Louis Dimier, Paris and Brussels 1930, 2, no. 79
Bailey and Hamilton 1991: Bailey, Colin B. and Carrie A. Hamilton, The Loves of the Gods: Mythological Painting from Watteau to David (exh. cat. Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth), New York 1991
Baker and Henry 2001: Baker, Christopher and Tom Henry, The National Gallery Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
Barroero and Susinno 2000: Barroero, Liliana and Stefano Susinno, ‘Arcadian Rome, universal capital of the arts’, in Art in Rome in the Eighteenth Century, eds Edgar Peters Bowron and Joseph J. Rishel (exh. cat. Splendor of Eighteenth Century Rome, Philadephia Museum of Art and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston), Philadelphia and London 2000, 47–75
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Cicero 1732: Cicero, Marcus Tullius, Tusculane de Ciceron sur le mepris de la mort. Traduite par M. l’abbé d’Olivet, de l’Academie Francoise. Avec des Remarques de M. le President Bouhier, de la meme Academie, sur la Texte de Ciceron. On y a joint le Songe de Scipion, Paris 1732
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Colton 1967: Colton, Judith, ‘The Endymion myth and Poussin’s Detroit painting’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 1967, 30, 426–31
Conisbee 1987: Conisbee, Philip, ‘Paris, Musée du Luxembourg. Subleyras’, Burlington Magazine, June 1987, 129, 414–17
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Couturier et al. 2011: Couturier, Sonia, et al., Drawn to Art: French Artists and Art Lovers in 18th‐Century Rome (exh. cat. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Musée des Beaux‐Arts de Caen), Milan 2011
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Davies 1946: Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: The French School, London 1946 (revised 2nd edn, London 1957)
Davies 1957: Davies, Martin, National Gallery Catalogues: The French School, 2nd edn, revised, London 1957
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DiFederico 1977: DiFederico, Frank R., Francesco Trevisani: Eighteenth‐Century Painter in Rome: A Catalogue Raisonné, Washington DC 1977
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List of exhibitions cited

London 1959–60: London, Kenwood House, a selection of works from the Ford collection exhibited during the refurbishment of Brinsley Ford’s house in Wyndham Place, 1959–60
London 1968: London, Royal Academy of Arts, France in the Eighteenth Century, 1968 (exh. cat.: Sutton 1968)
Paris and Rome 1987: Paris, Musée du Luxembourg; Rome, Accademia di Francia, Villa Medici, Subleyras 1699–1749, 1987

The Organisation of the Catalogue

This is a catalogue of the eighteenth‐century French paintings in the National Gallery. Following the example of Martin Davies’s 1957 catalogue of the Gallery’s French paintings, the catalogue includes works by or after some artists who were not French: Jean‐Etienne Liotard, who was Swiss, Alexander Roslin, who was Swedish, and Philippe Mercier, born in Berlin of French extraction but working mainly in England.

Works are catalogued by alphabetical order of artist, and multiple works by an artist are arranged in order of date or suggested date. Works considered to be autograph come first, followed by works in which I believe the studio played a part, those which are studio productions, and later copies. Artists’ biographies are summary only.

The preliminary essay and all entries and artist biographies are by Humphrey Wine unless initialled by one of the authors listed on p. 4.

Each entry is arranged as follows:

Title: The traditional title of each painting has been adopted except where misleading to do so.

Date: The date, or the suggested date, is given immediately below the title. The reason for any suggested date is explained in the body of the catalogue entry.

Media and measurementS: Height precedes width, and measurements (in centimetres) are of the painted surface to the nearest millimetre ignoring insignificant variations. Additional information on media and measurements, where appropriate, is provided in the Technical Notes.

Inscriptions: Where the work is inscribed, the inscription is given immediately after the note of media and measurements. Information is derived from observation, whether by the naked eye or with the help of a microscope, by the cataloguer and a member of the Conservation Department. The use of square brackets indicates letters or numerals that are not visible, but reasonably presumed once to have been so.

Provenance: Information on former owners is provided under Provenance and the related endnotes. A number of significant owners, including Sir Bernard Eckstein; Ernest William Beckett, 2nd Baron Grimthorpe; John Arthur and Mary Venetia James; Yolande Lyne Stephens; Sir John Pringle; Mrs Mozelle Sassoon; James Stuart of Dunearn; John Webb; and Consuelo and Emilie Yznaga, are discussed further in an appendix to this volume on the National Gallery website, ‘Former Owners of the Eighteenth‐Century French Paintings’ (see ~~https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/research/national‐gallery‐catalogues/former‐owners‐of‐the‐eighteenth‐century‐french‐paintings~~ https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/research/research-resources/national-gallery-catalogues/former-owners-of-the-eighteenth-century-french-paintings-in-the-national-gallery-1 ).

Exhibitions: Long‐term loans to other collections have been included under this heading, but they do not appear in the List of Exhibitions at the end of the catalogue. Exhibitions in that list appear in date order.

Related Works: Dimensions are given where known, and works are in oil on canvas unless otherwise indicated. They have not been verified by ~~first hand~~ first‐hand inspection. Dimensions of drawings or prints, other than in captions to illustrations, are not given unless they are exceptional. Dimensions are given in centimetres, but other units of measurement used in, say, an auction catalogue have been retained. The metric equivalent of an Ancien Régime pouce is 2.7 cm and (after 1825) that of an inch is 2.54 cm. In the case of prints, where measurements are given, it has not always been possible to determine whether they are of the plate or the image.

Technical Notes: All works in the catalogue were examined in the Conservation Studio by Paul Ackroyd and Ashok Roy of the Conservation and Scientific Departments respectively, generally together with the author of the catalogue entry. The records of these observations were used to compile the catalogue’s Technical Notes. In support of these studies, paint samples for examination and analysis were taken by Ashok Roy from approximately 60 per cent of the paintings in order to establish the nature and constitution of ground layers, the identity of certain pigments, to investigate possible colour changes in paint layers and to answer curatorial enquiries relating to layer structure (as determined by paint cross‐sections). A few more works had already been sampled, mainly in conjunction with past conservation treatments, and the observations from these past studies were reviewed and incorporated. These studies were carried out by Ashok Roy, Marika Spring, Joyce Plesters and Aviva Burnstock. Paint samples and cross‐sections were examined by optical microscopy, and instrumental analysis of pigments was based largely on scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive X‐ray analysis. Early in the cataloguing programme, some work with X‐ray diffraction analysis ( XRD ) was carried out for further characterisation of certain pigments. Some of these results had already been published separately; these papers are cited in the catalogue text. Similarly, any published analyses of the paint binder are cited, or if not published then reference is made to the reports in the Scientific Department files. The majority of the [page 36]analyses of the organic component of paint samples from works in this catalogue were carried out by Raymond White.

At a later stage in the cataloguing programme Rachel Billinge carried out infrared reflectography on 30 of the 72 works using an OSIRIS digital infrared scanning camera with an indium gallium arsenide (InGaAs) array sensor (8 had already been examined by infrared imaging, usually in connection with a conservation treatment). At the same time she reviewed the entries, adding observations from technical imaging (both X‐radiography and infrared reflectography) and incorporating some additional details about materials and techniques from stereomicroscopy (photomicrographs were made of 12 works). Where X‐radiographs have been made, the individual plates were scanned and composite X‐ray images assembled. Some, but not all, were further processed to remove the stretcher bars from the digital image. Some further paint samples from a few works for which there were still outstanding questions at this stage in the cataloguing programme were examined and analysed. These analyses were carried out by Marika Spring, with contributions on individual paintings from Joanna Russell, Gabriella Macaro, Marta Melchiorre di Crescenzo, Helen Howard and David Peggie.

Macro‐X‐ray fluorescence scanning was carried out by Marika Spring and Rachel Billinge on one work, Perronneau’s pastel, A Girl with a Kitten (NG 3588), to provide fuller understanding of its means of creation than had been available from earlier analyses of the materials. The pastel was scanned during the summer of 2015 thanks to the loan of a Bruker M6 Jetstream macro‐X‐ray fluorescence scanner by Delft University of Technology through collaboration with Dr Joris Dik, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Chair, Materials in Art and Archeology, Department of Materials Science and Dr Annelies van Loon, now Paintings Research Scientist at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. This mobile system, the first commercially available macro‐XRF scanner, was developed by Bruker Nano GmbH in close collaboration with Antwerp University and Delft University of Technology (see Alfeld 2013, pp. 760–7). This examination included transmitted infrared reflectography and some further directed sampling to aid interpretation of the new results.

Frames: Information is given only in the case of a frame which is, or which is likely to be, original to the painting.

Text: With the exception of the Lagrenée, which was not formally acquired until July 2016, the entries take account of information and opinions of which the cataloguers were aware as at 30 June 2016.

Lifespan dates, where known, are given in the Provenance section and in the Index.

General References: These do not provide a list of every published reference. The annual catalogues published by the Gallery before the First World War mainly repeat the information in the first Gallery catalogue in which the painting in question was published. Consequently, only the first catalogue and later catalogues containing additional or revised information have been referenced. In all relevant cases references have been given to Martin Davies’s 1946 and 1957 catalogues. In the case of works acquired after 1957, reference is made to the interim catalogue entry published in the relevant National Gallery Report. No reference to entries in the Gallery’s Complete Illustrated Catalogue (London 2001) has been given since they contained no previously unpublished information. Other references are to catalogues raisonnés and other significant publications concerning the painting in question.

Bibliography: This includes all references cited in the endnotes to catalogue entries other than references to archival sources, which are given in full in the endnotes. Cited articles from newspapers, magazines, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and Who Was Who have usually been accessed via their respective online portals.

List of Exhibitions: This is a list of exhibitions in which the paintings have appeared. The list is in date order. The author of the accompanying exhibition catalogue or catalogue entry is given where known. Exhibition catalogues are included in the Bibliography, by author.

About this version

Version 3, generated from files HW_2018__16.xml dated 06/03/2025 and database__16.xml dated 09/03/2025 using stylesheet 16_teiToHtml_externalDb.xsl dated 03/01/2025. Entries for NG1090, NG2897, NG4078, NG5583, NG6422, NG6435, NG6445, NG6495, NG6592, NG6598 and NG6600-NG6601 marked for publication.

Cite this entry

Permalink (this version): https://data.ng.ac.uk/0EAR-000B-0000-0000
Permalink (latest version): https://data.ng.ac.uk/0E7J-000B-0000-0000
Chicago style: Wine, Humphrey. “NG 6592, Diana and Endymion”. 2018, online version 3, March 9, 2025. https://data.ng.ac.uk/0EAR-000B-0000-0000.
Harvard style: Wine, Humphrey (2018) NG 6592, Diana and Endymion. Online version 3, London: National Gallery, 2025. Available at: https://data.ng.ac.uk/0EAR-000B-0000-0000 (Accessed: 27 March 2025).
MHRA style: Wine, Humphrey, NG 6592, Diana and Endymion (National Gallery, 2018; online version 3, 2025) <https://data.ng.ac.uk/0EAR-000B-0000-0000> [accessed: 27 March 2025]

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Diana and Endymion:Catalogue entry