Diana at her Bath

Diana at her Bath, painted around 1715 and now in the Louvre, is one of Watteau's rare mythological paintings. The goddess of the hunt at her bath provided a pretext for the female nude within a landscape setting, a subject more commonly associated with the academic tradition Watteau generally avoided. His treatment strips the scene of mythological apparatus, presenting Diana simply as a beautiful nude in a woodland, merging the mythological with the pastoral in a way characteristic of his approach. Watteau had trained under Claude Audran III, keeper of the Luxembourg Palace, where he studied Rubens's Marie de Médicis cycle and absorbed the Flemish master's rich coloring and sensuous figure painting. The Diana reflects this Flemish influence in its warm flesh tones and atmospheric woodland setting. Working in oil on panel with luminous brushstrokes, Watteau achieved a shimmering surface that perfectly captures the interplay of soft light and shadow on the nude form. He died of tuberculosis in 1721, leaving this tender mythological painting among the most intimate works of his brief career.

The nude figure of Diana is rendered with delicate, pearlescent flesh tones against a dark woodland backdrop. Watteau's treatment of the nude combines sensuous observation with the poetic refinement characteristic of his entire oeuvre.