Jan Stobbaerts, Diana’s Rest

by Atelier Liesjes

In a studio bathed in a brown, twilight glow, a naked young woman sits on a low bench. She keeps her knees together, her arms limp, her head bowed; her skin is creamy white and stands out sharply against the dark surroundings. Beside her sits an elderly man with a beard and a felt hat, dressed in a dark robe, who is leaning towards her and resting his hand on her shoulder. Behind them stands an easel with a large canvas depicting a landscape with trees; above it, on a ledge, stand a plaster bust and a jug. On the right, a second canvas leans against an easel, depicting a vague white figure. A dog lies stretched out on the floor, fast asleep. In the top left-hand corner, a streak of daylight streams through a stained-glass window.
Everything points to the studio as a workshop: the easels, the casts, the barrel on the left, the picture frames in the background. Yet there is no action, no posing for an audience; the woman is resting, the man is looking at her as a painter might look at his model. The title refers to the repose of Diana, the huntress who sits down after the hunt, but Stobbaerts paints her without hunting gear or a retinue of nymphs, as a weary girl amidst paint and plaster. The palette is warm and rich: umber, ochres, dull green and the flesh-coloured light of the skin.
Jan Stobbaerts (Antwerp 1838 – Antwerp 1914) built his career on depictions of stables, cows and slaughterhouses, subjects in which he followed the Dutch seventeenth-century tradition. This studio piece reveals a different side: a naturalism that eschews the academic nudes of his contemporaries and remains closer to everyday life. His work is held in Belgian museums. An intimate, sombre piece that develops its own glow in a classical interior.