Diana the Huntress

A crescent moon pinned in her hair, a bow in one hand and an arrow in the other, Diana, goddess of the hunt, strides along with a white hound and turns to look straight out of the picture. She was painted around the middle of the 16th century by one of the artists decorating the royal château of Fontainebleau. For a long time the Louvre listed her as anonymous. The name Charles Carmoy, a painter documented at the château, is a recent attribution by the museum. The canvas was bought in 1840, kept at Fontainebleau for decades and only moved to the Louvre in 1889. At some point strips were added along its edges to make it larger. A restoration in 2024 removed them, and she now hangs in the tall, narrow format she was painted in.