unknown - Diana - 1650-1700 - T-Shirt

This is a graphite study of a curly-haired woman, turned three-quarters toward the viewer, who grips a long shaft beside a sheet of foliage.

Visual Elements & Composition

The design is built in warm monochrome: graphite grey lines and light hatching sit on a cream paper ground that fills most of the frame. The figure dominates the centre, shown at half length, her head tilted slightly and her gaze directed out of the frame. Her hair is dressed in curls gathered high above the brow. A strap crosses diagonally from the shoulder over the chest, finished with a small clasp, and loose drapery falls across the torso and the bent right arm. At left, a slender shaft runs down out of the sheet, with foliage and a rising form filling the background. A double ruled border frames the whole composition.

Meaning & Symbolism

The name Diana identifies the subject as the Roman goddess of the hunt, who is usually shown outdoors with a bow and a quiver. The diagonal strap and the long shaft match those attributes, and the foliage stands for the woodland that was her domain. Her composed, distant expression presents her as a figure of chaste independence, a classical ideal that Renaissance and later artists drew on for mythological and courtly subjects. The sheet dates from the second half of the seventeenth century, when studies like this were made in preparation for paintings, prints and decorative schemes built on classical themes. It is held in the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum collection.

On This Tee

A drawing this detailed rewards close looking, and a tee keeps the artwork in view as you move. The figure's face and the curls at the crown sit where the eye lands first, and the diagonal strap and shaft carry the eye across the chest and down the sleeve. The double border gives the printed image a clean edge, so the study reads as a complete sheet rather than a fragment.