Diana with Nymphs and Actaeon

This relief, conceived in a very painterly manner, illustrates a scene from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The goddess of the hunt and of chastity, Diana, is bathing with her women companions when they are observed by a hunter named Actaeon. Since no mortal is permitted to see Diana naked, Actaeon is transformed into a stag by way of punishment, and his own dogs pursue him and tear him to pieces. Mazza, the foremost eighteenth- century sculptor in Bologna, makes of this tragic narrative a serene, Arcadian scene, one in which the soft, rounded bodies of beautiful women, with fine vestments billowing about them, are dominant. They are seen in harmony in and against an illusionistic landscape setting. The relief is a bravura piece of work. Mazza gives equally meticulous attention to the flat, gently evoked background as he does to the sculpturally rounded figures in the foreground. This wealth of painterly detail shows sculpture at the limits of possibility for the genre.