Jean-Antoine Houdon, Diana the Huntress, 1776-95, terracotta, 75 1/2 in. Purchased by The Frick Collection, 1939, photo: Michael Bodycomb. Source: The Frick Collection
The Frick Collection’s Diana the Huntress by Jean-Antoine Houdon (1740–1828) has found a permanent home in the elegant museum’s new Portico Gallery, along with one other sculpture by Houdon, The Dead Thrush. A signature work of the Frick Collection, the graceful statue is now the jewel of the new gallery, the building of which was a long-cherished wish of original owner of the neoclassical mansion, Henry Clay Frick.
Jean-Antoine Houdon, The Dead Thrush (La grive morte), marble relief, signed and dated 1782, on loan from The Horvitz Collection, Boston, photo: Richard di Liberto. Source: The Frick Collection
Diana, the fleet-footed virgin goddess of moon and hunt, poses delicately on one foot in a technical marvel without precedence in large-scale terracotta statues. As with his master-class marble busts, Houdon pushed past the boundaries of sculpture with Diana. Selections of Meissen porcelain selected from the promised gift made to the Frick by the distinguished collector Henry H. Arnhold will be on view through April 29, 2012.
