Sleeping Diana Watched by Two Fauns

The contrast between the bright luminescent Goddess of Hunting Diana, champion of chasteness, and the in part lecherous, in part fearful furry fauns watching her could hardly be greater. Their hands almost meet in the center of the canvas, but the rear faun just manages to hold back his companion in time. Thus, the fragile opposition of Goddess and creature of nature, of purity and instinct, of the sublime and the grotesque is maintained, and with it the stimulation of watching something forbidden. The figure of the halfexposed Diana continues the long tradition of representing female reclining figures, such as the sleeping Venus. Böcklin painted the piece under the influence of the colours preferred in the Italian Early Renaissance. He had trained in landscape painting at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and is regarded as the main representative of 19th-century idealist-symbolist art. The painting, which stems from the collection of Jewish banker Eduard L. Behrens sen. and was on permanent loan from the Federal Republic of Germany to the Museum Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf from 1966 onwards has since been acquired by the museum as part of a restitution agreement. (Kathrin DuBois)