Diana at the Bath. 1872. Watercolour and gouache on paper. 13 7/8 x 8 3/4 inches (35.2 X 22.3 cm). Private collection. Image courtesy of Sotheby's. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Crane painted this watercolour in Rome in 1872 when he was on his Italian honeymoon. It was never exhibited in his lifetime. According to his grandson Anthony Crane, the model for Diana was his grandmother Mary Frances Crane, the same woman who forbade Walter to study from the nude female model (O'Neill 192). If this is the case it is perhaps not surprising that Crane didn't exhibit the work publicly. As Morna O'Neill has pointed out, even if Mary Crane did not pose for the picture, "she certainly knew and presumably approved of its existence" (192).
The story of Diana and Actaeon comes from Ovid's Metamorphoses where Actaeon, Prince of Thebes, is out hunting when he surprises Diana while she bathes naked at a stream. As punishment she transforms Actaeon into a stag, who is then hunted down and killed by his own hounds. This subject had been a popular one for artists since the Renaissance, such as Titian's famous version of 1555-59. It was not a common subject in Victorian art, however. Crane's version shows the goddess standing naked with her arms raised and hands around her head. She is next to the stream where she will be bathing, her gown lying on the ground. She is not surrounded by her nymph attendants, however, as frequently shown in Old Master paintings. Actaeon's hounds are seen racing by in the midground. A glade of trees and an Italianate landscape form the background.
Diana proved to be a favourite subject for Crane. She is featured in the tapestry in the background of his At Home, A Portrait, also of 1872. In 1881 he painted the watercolour Diana showing the goddess, a hunting horn raised to her lips, out hunting in a forest accompanied by her hound. In 1883 he painted the myth of Diana and Endymion.
Bibliography
The British Sale: Part II. New York: Sotheby's (15 June 2000): lot 405.
Drawings and Watercolours. London: Christie's (29 October 1985): lot 187, 60-61.
O'Neill Morna. Walter Crane. The Arts and Crafts, Painting, and Politics, 1875-1890. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010. 192 n.48.
Created 19 November 2025