Diane au bain

Watteau made this around 1715, the year the old king Louis XIV died and Paris eased into the lighter, more private taste of the Regency that followed. He was the painter of the fete galante, those crowded flirtations in leafy parks, and the bare figure was something he almost never attempted. Here he did. The goddess Diana rests by the water after bathing, a thin crescent moon set in her hair to name her, her bow and quiver laid aside on the bank. There is no hunter spying on her, no drama, only a quiet moment lifted out of the old myth. Watteau painted few nudes like it, and he did not have long. He was already carrying the tuberculosis that killed him in 1721, at 36.