Hans Rottenhammer (1564-1625), Diana and Actaeon

In an attractive landscape, several women are shown bathing by a river, drying in the sun and chatting with each other. However, their peace is disturbed by a man peering from the bushes in the upper left corner.

This scene portrays the tale of Diana and Actaeon from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Actaeon, a hunter, was out in the forest with his hounds one day when he became thirsty. He made his way to a stream for a drink of water, and there happened upon Diana bathing with her nymphs. Spellbound by her beauty, he could not tear away his gaze away. Her nymphs quickly attempted to cover Diana with a length of cloth, but she was enraged at having been spied on and transformed Actaeon into a deer. Actaeon’s hounds no longer recognised their master: all they saw was prey, and they tore him apart.

This tale by Ovid’s hand was extremely popular in the arts around 1600, because it gave artists the opportunity to depict a large number of nudes. The climax of the story – the gruesome moment where the hounds seize the deer – was rarely portrayed, and in those rare cases where it was shown, it was usually in the background as a foreshadowing of the hunter’s end.  

The artist who produced this work is Hans Rottenhammer, a German painter born in Munich around 1564, who moved to Italy after his apprenticeship. During his time in Rome and, later, Venice (where he worked for more than ten years), he became famous for his tiny paintings on copper. After his time in Venice, Rottenhammer settled in Augsburg, where he began producing large canvases in addition to his small works on copper.  

Rottenhammer’s works were already in vogue far beyond Italy’s borders when he was still working in Venice, as evidenced by a commission from Rudolf II of Prague in 1600. He was also listed in Karel van Mander’s Schilder-Boeck (The Book of Painters or The Book on/of Painting), one of the very first artists’ encyclopaedias. We parafrase a passage from the section on Rottenhammer:    

He eventually came to Venice, where he married a Venetian woman, and created a multiplicity of beautiful works on copper, some large, some small, which have been distributed throughout many countries, and can be admired in the collections of art lovers. Among others, these can be found with the art-admiring Johan Knotter, currently residing in Utrecht, who owns various works on copper by him, both small and large. Notable among these are The Assumption of Our Lady and Actaeon and Diana, along with other pieces that are well-composed, lively, and glowingly painted. As such, not only are his paintings cherished by enthusiasts, but his name is also considered worthy and respected among skilled painters.

The above indicates that a painting on copper depicting the scene of Diana and Actaeon was part of an art collection in Utrecht in 1604 or (likely) somewhat before that, as the book was published in that year. Whether this was the present painting or a different painting with the same topic is difficult to say; Rottenhammer used the theme of Diana and Actaeon multiple times, although the various compositions differ, with Actaeon appearing in the centre in some cases, and on the left or right in others. A good example of a different painting with the same theme is a small work on copper in the Houston Museum of Fine Arts (inv. no. 56.19). A larger work on copper exists in Munich’s Alte Pinakothek (inv. no. 1588); this work dates from 1602. Yet another version survives in the Pushkin Museum, Moscow, and a signed drawing dated 1595 was auctioned at Sotheby’s New York in 2001. This drawing presents a different interpretation of the subject, and fetched $181,750 plus premiums. Rottenhammer has produced other drawings with the same theme, as well as various prints. Although a number of drawings can be linked to currently known works by Rottenhammer as preliminary studies, no such drawing is known to exist for the present painting. This painting thus forms a good example of the artist’s ability to render the same subject differently, time and time again.

The painting described here was unknown until now, and therefore was not included in Peltzer’s list or Schlichtenmaier’s excellent and unfortunately unpublished dissertation. The beautiful figures clearly demonstrate the artist’s virtuosity, and the influence of Jan Brueghel and Paulus Bril, the Flemish artists whom Rottenhammer encountered in Rome, is unmistakeably evident in the magnificent landscape and the vista extending into the distance. He collaborated with these masters on many of his paintings, and often painted figures for them.

Judging by the date in the bottom right corner, Rottenhammer must have painted this piece in Venice. The signature is very similar to that on a painting by Hans Rottenhammer in Mauritshuis, namely The Fall of Phaeton, dated 1604. The eye-catching nude women with upcast gazes also display similar postures as the women on the present painting who are staring at Actaeon in shock. The contour lines around the figures’ heads are a noticeable element that occurs in many of Rottenhammer’s paintings, and the turned heads, too, feature in other paintings by his hand.

Rottenhammer’s works were greatly appreciated by his contemporaries, as his inclusion in Karel van Mander’s Schilder-Boeck (published in 1604) aptly illustrates. However, after his death, his works slipped into obscurity, so that the title of the 2008 exhibition Begehrt, vergessen, neu entdeckt (Sought-After, Forgotten, Rediscovered) is an accurate description of both his oeuvre as a whole and this painting in particular.

Literature:
Rudolf Peltzer, Hans Rottenhammer in Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses, Bd 33 (1916) nr. 5 pp. 293-365.
H Borggrefe, Th. Füsenig, Hans Rottenhammer: begehrt, vergessen, neu entdeckt, exh. Cat. Weserrenaissance-Museum Schloss Brake, Narodni Galerie Praag 2008
H. Schlichtenmaier, Studien zum Werk Hans Rottenhammers des Älteren (1564-1625), Maler und Zeichner : mit Werkkatalog, Tübingen 1988