Diana and Actaeon- Hendrick VAN BALEN & Jan BRUEGHEL the Elder

Another version of this composition, where the figures come from Hendrik Van Ballen, is kept at the ALTE PinaKOTHEK in Munich. It is of the same size as our copper, and probably takes over a lost original from Rottenhammer. The variants mainly concern the elements on the ground, here on the right a frog-crayfish in Munich, and on the left a pearl necklace and chain next to the quiver-a fish and shells in Munich. These naturalistic and miniaturized details seem to us to be in the hand of JAN Brueghel.
The catalog of the Rottenhammer exhibition of 2008-2009 places this type of precious mythological creation, painted for the cabinets of amateurs, at the very end of the 16th century. Around 1599, when Rottenhammer met Jan Brueghel the Elder at the court of Rudolf II in Prague. The author mentions several cases where an original by the German painter inspired Van Balen, also in the same format and on copper, such as, for example, the Judgment of Midas in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, a copy of which is in the Sanssouci Castle in Postdam.