Diana's Return from the Chase (from Set of Ovid's Metamorphoses) (1704–1731): Art, History and Details

Diana's Return from the Chase (from Set of Ovid's Metamorphoses) (1704–1731) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Gobelins Manufactory (France, Paris, est. 1662).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This tapestry’s elaborate border emulates a gilt picture frame, a key characteristic of eighteenth-century Gobelins tapestries. It portrays the goddess Diana at two distinct moments, during and following the hunt, the first accompanied by three dogs, and the second reclining among five attendants. The figures are positioned in a lush landscape near a small stream. A putto, poised to place an arrow in his bow, hovers above Diana. Goddess of the hunt and associated with wild animals and the moon, Diana can be identified by the crescent worn above her forehead. The dead hares indicate a successful hunt.

Object facts

• Title: Diana's Return from the Chase (from Set of Ovid's Metamorphoses)
• Date: 1704–1731
• Creator attribution: Gobelins Manufactory (France, Paris, est. 1662)
• Culture: France
• Type: Tapestry
• Technique: tapestry weave
• Dimensions: Overall: 322.5 x 326 cm (126 15/16 x 128 3/8 in.)
• Collection: Textiles
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1956.325.1

A detail from the museum

During the French Revolution, Gobelins tapestries were sometimes disassembled to harvest the gold threads.

Collection credit

Gift of Mrs. Matthias Plum

Further reading listed by the museum

• Malloy, Katherine R. “Three Eighteenth-Century Gobelins Tapestries.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 44, no. 2 (1957): 24–27.
• Standen, Edith A. “Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’: A Gobelins Tapestry Series.” Metropolitan Museum Journal 23 (1988): 149-191.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.