The Goddess of Hunting and The God of Love: Diana and Cupid, Pompeo Batoni, Italian, 1761

Sir Humphrey Morice (1723–1785), son of a wealthy merchant and director of the Bank of England, commissioned this image of the goddess of hunting. It hung as a pendant, or companion piece, to Batoni’s portrait of Morice re-clining in the Roman countryside next to his dogs, rifle, and dead game. Together, the works contrast modern and ancient Rome in the manner of Giovanni Paolo Panini’s two canvases found nearby. Diana’s distinctive pose is based on a famous ancient statue of the sleeping Cretan princess Ariadne. Batoni inserts a literal tension into this otherwise staid composition with the elegantly lifted bow, which Diana withholds from Cupid.A leading painter in eighteenth-century Rome, the Lucchese painter Pompeo Batoni was especially popular as a portraitist of milords on the Grand Tour. This picture was commissioned by Sir Humphry Morice shortly after his arrival in Rome in spring 1761: the artist’s receipt for the picture (for which, see Ashburnham 1793) reads as follows: "Io sottoscritto mi obbligo a consegnar il qua / dro di Diana e Cupido a che mi pagherà / trecento zecchini il patto fatto con signor / Morice Inglese per il medesimo quadro / il primo di d'Aprile 1762 / Pompeo Batoni" (I the undersigned oblige myself to consign the picture of Diana and Cupid to he who pays me 300 zecchini according to the agreement made with the Englishman Signor Morice for the same picture the first of April, 1762. Pompeo Batoni [see Bowron 1982]). In 1762 Morice then commissioned a full-length portrait showing himself reclining in the Roman countryside with three hounds and some game as a pendant (the original, dated 1762 or 1763, is in the collection of the late Sir Richard Graham, Norton Conyers, Yorkshire; an autograph replica is in the collection of Brinsley Ford [see Bowron 1982]). Diana is the goddess of the hunt, and the two pictures would have made effective pendants. In The Met's picture Diana holds Cupid's bow out of his reach, an action that is probably intended as a reproof, since Cupid's use of the bow was considered capricious and misdirected (Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 1, lines 455ff.). The picture was highly praised in Rome and was considered the finest work by the artist (Bull 1787). Christiansen (1983) has noted its strongly Neoclassical design, with the Diana inspired by a famous Roman statue in the Vatican. He also suggests that the picture may have been conceived as a response by Batoni to his rival, Anton Raphael.

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