Portrait of the Marquise Françoise de Montespan as Diana the Huntress

Being painted as Diana, bow in hand and dogs at her feet, was the standard compliment at the court of Louis XIV, and this time it was paid to Francoise-Athenais, Marquise de Montespan, the king's declared mistress for more than a decade and the mother of seven of his children. The line worth catching is the Latin one in the lower right corner. It comes from Horace, and it describes Cupid sharpening his burning arrows on a bloody whetstone. In the ode it is taken from, the god is doing that on behalf of a beautiful woman whose broken promises only draw more men in. The museum names no painter, files the picture as French and mentions the workshop of Pierre Mignard, who portrayed Montespan and her children more than once. Another version of the same composition is at Althorp in England, and the two are told apart by the dogs. In the English canvas the one on the left turns toward its mistress. In this one it is drinking.