Diana Returning from the Hunt

Diana Returning from the Hunt (1745), in the Musée Cognacq-Jay in Paris, depicts the goddess of the hunt with her nymphs after a day's sport — a subject that combined mythological narrative with the display of idealized female nudity. Boucher's Diana paintings were among his most popular compositions, their athletic subject providing a frame for depicting beautiful women in a natural setting. The Musée Cognacq-Jay, housed in a Left Bank townhouse, preserves an intimate collection of French eighteenth-century art that provides an authentic domestic context for paintings designed to decorate aristocratic interiors.

Boucher renders the mythological scene with his signature luminous flesh tones and a palette of soft blues, pinks, and greens. The elegant arrangement of the nude figures in the landscape setting exemplifies the sensuous decorative ideal of the French Rococo.