Diane d'Anet, marble sculpture representing Diane de Poitiers accompanied by a majestic deer. 1550-1560, Louvre Museum, Paris. • WIKIMEDIACOMMONS Of the sculptures of the Château d'Anet built by Henri II for Diane de Poitiers, there remains only what Alexandre Lenoir was able to save in 1804 for his Museum of French Monuments, located in Paris at the Petits-Augustins convent. Dismantled, damaged by the iconoclastic wave of 1795, the castle was sold and partially demolished by its buyer using explosives, before being abandoned. But the famous statue of Diana, repatriated to the Petits-Augustins then bequeathed to the Louvre, remains. Today it is one of the key pieces in the history of French sculpture from the 16th century. century. Contained eroticism The work is an allegorical evocation of Henry II's mistress. Diane de Poitiers here becomes Diana the huntress, represented lying down, accompanied by her two dogs Phrocyon the greyhound and Cyrius the barbet, embracing a majestic stag, with a thin muzzle and wide eyes. Scantily clad, but of a chaste and marmoreal beauty, she turns her head in the direction of the deer, begins a movement of her legs and, her left hand resting on her bow, seems to want to rise with the animal. The dogs are placed in the back, the barbet agitated and the greyhound on the lookout. The goddess is wearing a diadem in the shape of a crescent moon, symbol of Diana taken up by the king, from which hangs a jewel that adorns her smooth and pure forehead. The ornamentation of the jewel responds to the delicate sinuosities of the hair. The whole is placed on a sarcophagus base whose oval shape is characteristic of the style of Philibert de L'Orme, the architect of the castle, who also used it for the chimneys of the building. Its decoration of crabs and crayfish refers to its destination:this magnificent sculpted group adorned one of the fountains in the castle gardens, first placed high on a structure with semicircular arches for the fountain in the left courtyard. , then moved to the XVII th century for a lower fountain in the middle of a circular basin. Who is the author? Little is known about the commissioning of this statue and doubt still hangs over the identity of the artist. The latent eroticism of the chaste goddess, the harmonious and fine lines of the face and body, the elongated anatomy plead for a rapprochement with the imposing bronze bas-relief commissioned a few years earlier by François I er at Benvenuto Cellini before returning to Florence, then moved to the Château d'Anet where it adorned the central portal. Diana is also lying next to a deer. Also read:Francis I, a French Renaissance The similarities with another work of the Florentine goldsmith who became a genius sculptor, the salt cellar of François I st where the allegories of the Earth and the Sea face each other, suggested for a time an attribution to this master of bronze. But the Italian hypothesis does not bear careful examination of his biography – it would have been impossible for him to execute a work before his departure for Florence – and the stylistic study seems to plead, without certainty however, for a rapprochement with Jean Goujon , already mentioned by Lenoir, or one of his students. A political work What is at play in this statue is the tension between the influence of the mannerism of the school of Fontainebleau and the affirmation of a style specific to the French Renaissance. Henry II did not have the best rapport with his father; he had broken with the great projects of François I st , neglecting Fontainebleau for the Louvre site, taken on by Pierre Lescot, and that of Anet, by Philibert de L’Orme. By affirming the new priorities of his patronage, the sovereign also relied on new artists, different from the international context of Fontainebleau. However, the influence of Primaticcio, the great Italian master to whom Henry II had left the management of the Fontainebleau site still in progress, continued to assert itself, including on the sculptors. It is also not impossible that this statue was made after a drawing from the Louvre attributed to his circle. Thus, despite its novelty and its desire for purity, French classicism was not totally freed from Bellifontaine's influence. Find out more • Renaissance Art in France. The invention of classicism, H. Zerner, Flammarion, 1996.• Philibert de L'Orme, Anthony Blunt, G.Monfort, 1986.
