Dish with Diana, the Nymph of Fontainebleau

Bernard Palissy

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The scene on this plate is based on a print begun by the skilled Parisian engraver Pierre Milan and finished several years later by an assistant to Milan, René Boyvin. The original composition is after a fresco by Rosso Fiorentino ("Il Rosso"). The subject refers to the origin of the name of Fontainebleau: a thirsty hunting dog named Bleau separated from its master and found in the forest a clear, pure spring; his master, "one of our kings," named the spring after him "la Fontaine de Bleau." The image of Diana, Nymph of Fontainbleau, enjoyed great popularity: the Museum has two other versions of this composition, notably a copy of the engraving in the Department of Drawings and Prints (32.105), and an oil on wood painting in the Department of European Paintings (42.105.12).

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.

Metropolitan Museum of Art