Diana Bathing with her Nymphs with Actaeon and Callisto [SEP] creator
Diana Bathing with her Nymphs with Actaeon and Callisto
Diana Bathing with her Nymphs with Actaeon and Callisto is a 1634 painting by the Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn. It is now on show in the Salm-Salm princely collection in the Wasserburg Anholt in Anholt, Germany.
It shows two episodes from Ovid's "Metamorphoses", in both of which someone is punished by the goddess Diana for a sexual offence. On the left, Actaeon is punished for seeing the goddess naked by being turned into a stag and killed
of Diana (Artemis) so that he might evade his wife Juno’s detection, forcing himself upon Callisto while she was separated from Diana and the other nymphs. Callisto's subsequent pregnancy was discovered several months later while she was bathing with Diana and her fellow nymphs. Diana became enraged when she saw that Callisto was pregnant and expelled her from the group. Callisto later gave birth to Arcas. Juno then took the opportunity to avenge her wounded pride and transformed the nymph into a bear. Sixteen years later Callisto, still a