Cephalus and Pan at the Temple of Diana
Bernardino Luini·c. 1520/1522
Historical Context
Cephalus and Pan at the Temple of Diana continues Luini's Ovidian cycle, expanding the cast of mythological characters to include Pan — goat-footed god of the hunt and wild places — alongside the mortal hunter Cephalus. Pan's association with Diana placed him naturally in hunting narratives, and his appearance in this scene reflects the Renaissance tendency to populate mythological landscapes with the full cast of ancient deities. Luini's fresco painting style shows his debt to Leonardo's atmospheric modeling while also demonstrating his own distinctive contribution: where Leonardo's figures are psychologically intense and compositionally spare, Luini's are emotionally gentle and narratively expansive, filling his scenes with mythological incident and natural detail.
Technical Analysis
Luini's fresco technique achieves remarkable subtlety in the modeling of the figures, with soft transitions derived from Leonardo's sfumato adapted to the wall painting medium. The temple architecture provides a structural framework for the composition, while the figures are arranged with classical balance and grace.
Provenance
Commissioned c. 1522 by Gerolamo Rabia for either the Casa Rabia, Milan, or his country house, La Pelucca, near Monza.[1] Michele Cavaleri, Milan; sold 1873 to Enrico (Henri) Cernuschi [1821-1896], Paris and Menton, until at least 1895.[2] (Charles Sedelmeyer, Paris), by 1897.[3] Rodolphe Kann [d. 1905], Paris, by 1900;[4] his estate; sold 1907 to (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris); sold 1942 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[5] gift 1943 to NGA. [1] See the discussion in Fern Rusk Shapley, _Catalogue of the Italian Paintings_, 2 vols., Washington, D.C., 1979: 1:285-288. If the frescoes were in the Casa Rabia, on the Piazza San Sepolcro in Milan, the house passed out of the family about 1530, but the paintings remained in place since they were not removed until about 1800. Among the subsequent owners of the house were the Palletta and Silva families. [2] The ownership of the frescoes by Cavaleri and Cernuschi, as well as other information about the provenance is discussed in detail by Luca Beltrami, _Luini, materiale de studio_, Milan, 1911: 188-198. Cavaleri was a Milanese lawyer who began collecting around 1845 and from 1870 on opened to the public what by then had come to be called the Cavaleri Museum. The owner hoped that the collection would be purchased by the city of Milan, but when negotiations fell through, he sold the entire collection to Cernuschi on 13 April 1873 (see Alessandra Mottola Molfino, "Collezionismo e mercato artistico a Milano," in _Zenale e Leonardo. Tradizione e rinnovamento della pittura lombarda_, Milan, 1982: 247-248). Cernuschi was a Milanese emigrant to France, and as he otherwise collected mainly objects of Asian Art (see Caroline Gyss-Vermande, "Cernuschi, Henri," in _Dictionary of Art_, 34 vols., New York, 1996: 6:345), it is likely he obtained his Italian paintings from the Cavaleri collection. [3] Charles Sedelmeyer, [catalogue], Paris, 1897: nos. 52-60. [4] _Gemälde-Sammlung des Herrn Rudolf Kann in Paris. 100 Photogravuren mit Text von Wilhelm Bode_, Vienna, 1900. [5] Fern Rusk Shapley, _Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XV-XVI Century_, London, 1968: 141-142. See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/464.
