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Wikimedia Commons · CC0 · Hover to magnify, click for fullscreen
Original fileDoos van zilver, gedeeltelijk verguld, met deksel van parelmoer met gesneden reliëf met voorstelling van Diana en Callisto
after Hendrick Goltzius
The scene unfolds in a detailed forest landscape where the goddess Diana, marked by a crescent moon on her forehead, sits among her nymphs. On the right side of the composition, several nymphs forcibly undress Callisto to reveal her pregnancy, which led to her expulsion from Diana's chaste company. The relief is intricately carved into an iridescent mother-of-pearl lid set into an oval silver box with gilded edges.
This work illustrates a scene from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, a text that served as a primary source for early modern allegorical and Hermetic interpretations of nature. In the esoteric tradition, Diana (the Moon) represents the feminine, 'lunar' principle associated with the soul's purity and specific stages of the alchemical Great Work involving the purification of matter.
JAN · BARCKHUYSEN fec : 1732
Translation
JAN BARCKHUYSEN made it : 1732
Ovid, Metamorphoses
The primary literary source for the myth of Diana and Callisto, which was frequently interpreted through Neoplatonic and alchemical lenses during the Renaissance.
Object
Engraving
mythological
Digital Source
Wikimedia Commons · CC0
http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.17197
Creative Commons Zero, Public Domain Dedication
2500 × 1912 px
c0dd865621ea963daa6e19ef260cc255042badd3
November 7, 2019
March 23, 2026
Linked Data
AI AI-cataloged fields generated by gemini-3-flash-preview on April 1, 2026. Getty identifiers are AI-inferred and may require verification.