Diana Hunting

Entry

With the growing demand for garden sculpture in the Republic during the seventeenth century, a substantial industry for the casting of lead figures developed. The leading artists were members of the Larson family, working alternately in The Hague and London, followed by Arent de Rijp (1659-?) from Delft, Barent Dronrijp (working in the second half of the seventeenth century) from Delft and Amsterdam, and lastly Jonas Gutsche (1624-c. 1677) and his son Andries Gutsche in The Hague. George Larson (working in London c. 1634-1654), Willem (‘Guillaume’) Larson (documented in The Hague 1647-1660) and his son the statuarius (sculptor) Johan (d. 1664) can be seen as the pioneers of this branch of statuary-founding in the Republic. George Larson worked in England, possibly with the court sculptor Hubert le Sueur (c. 1580-1658). Thanks to their purveyance to the English court, the court of the Stadholder in The Hague, his entourage, the Elector in Berlin and a wide range of Dutch and German aristocratic patrons, they dominated most of the market for reproductive sculpture of this type in north-west Europe.³

It is likely that this lead Diana figure was cast after a model by Johan Larson, which can be deduced from the fact that an identical lead statue was situated at Elswout, near Overveen, the country residence of the Amsterdam merchant Gabriel Marselis (1609-1673). His descendants sold various effects from Elswout in 1719, including ‘a Diana with her dog over 7 feet in height’. It was purchased by Vincent van der Vinne for 143 guilders. In the margin of the sales document the sculptor’s name (Johan Larson) was noted.⁴ The fact that this refers to the same model as the Rijksmuseum figure is confirmed by a bird’s eye view painting of Elswout’s garden, attributed to Jan van der Heijden, in which a number of white garden statues can be seen, with Diana plus dog in the middle.⁵ The height mentioned of over 7 feet (c. 2 metres) probably relates to the statue including the pedestal. Another Diana in lead, most likely also by Johan Larson, stood in the gardens of the stadholder’s palace at Noordeinde in The Hague, as is apparent from a poetic description of the palace garden by Jacob de Hennin of 1681.⁶ Lastly, a plaster version of Diana was mentioned among Larson’s bequeathed effects in 1664.⁷

In that year, the majority of Larson’s workshop inventory, including the models and moulds, was purchased by the Delft statuary founder, Arent de Rijp which gave the Larson compositions a second life. With the reselling of moulds and models, compositions like this could be reused far into the eighteenth century. The Amsterdam Diana is one of such third or fourth generation casts, probably based on Johan Larson’s original model. The fact, however, that in 1689 another Hague statue founder, Andries Gutsche (1658-1741), signed a contract for the delivery of two lead statues and a set of eight plaster statues, including a Diana, to be sent to the Swedish court in Stockholm, demonstrates that other Dutch foundries could also provide sculptures of classical deities such as Diana.⁸

Larson’s invention is a variant of the Diane chasseuresse or Diana de Versailles in the Louvre, a classical marble statue that has enjoyed great appreciation in Paris since the sixteenth century.⁹ The leaping deer accompanying the goddess in the marble, was replaced by a more static greyhound, which was also of Roman derivation and was undoubtedly easier to cast. Johan Larson’s stock also included the model of a lone dog.¹⁰ A single bronze Diana de Versailles, is known to exist, with neither dog nor deer, made by Hubert le Sueur , who cast it for the English King Charles I in 1633.¹¹ If George Larson and Le Sueur did work together in London, a model might conceivably have ended up in the Larson’s foundry in The Hague and so formed the basis for Dutch examples, including the Rijksmuseum statue.

Frits Scholten, 2025