Beschreibung:

Details
ÉCOLE DE FONTAINEBLEAU
La noyade de Britomartis
plume et encre brune, lavis brun, mise au carreau au graphite
43,5 x 31,5 cm (17 1/8 x 12 3/8 in.)
Provenance
L. Grassi (1913-1994), Rome (L. 4465).
Post lot text
SCHOOL OF FONTAINEBLEAU, THE DROWNING OF BRITOMARTIS, PEN AND BROWN INK, BROWN WASH, SQUARED WITH BLACK CHALK
This drawing is related to a panel in a cycle of seven tapestries with subjects taken from the history of the goddess Diana, commissioned by Henry II for the apartments on the second floor of the castle of Anet during reconstruction work between 1549 and 1552. The story of the goddess was viewed as echoing the life of Henry II’s wife, Diane de Poitiers.
Here, the Greek divinity Britomartis, wishing to remain virginal and solitary, pursued by Minos, the Cretan king, who wants to take her by force into the woods, would rather end up drowned than abused. She is rescued by fishermen who hide her in their nets. In the foreground on the edge of the shore, Diane, with a dog and women, is about to reach out to him to help him out of the water.
A related tapestry in wool and silk depicting the episode is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. 42.57.1 (fig. 1; see J. Coural and M.-H. Babelon in, L’École de Fontainebleau, exhib. cat., Paris, Grand Palais, 1972, no. 461, ill.). As a plate in a series of six prints, Étienne Delaune (1518/1519-1583) made an engraving with differences around 1547-1548, where Minos is seen in the foreground on the bank, his arms raised (A.-P.-F. Robert-Dumesnil, Le Peintre-graveur français, 1865, XI., no. 136).
Three other drawings related to the same tapestry exist, of slightly different style and technique, are at the Louvre (inv. 8741, 8742, 8743), with an attribution that has changed over time: once given to Rosso Fiorentino, they were then attributed to Luca Penni by Louis Dimier (French Painting in the Sixteenth Century, London and New York, 1904, pp. 115-116) and Sylvie Béguin (in exhib. cat., 1972, op. cit., pp. 129-130, under no. 139), to Jean Cousin the Elder and then to Charles Carmois (see the museum’s database).
Fig. 1. The Drowning of Britomartis. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.