Diana and Actaeon in a Landscape

The fragments of the inscription on the pebble in the left lower part of the painting reveal that the picture was dedicated by the painter to the Nuremberg collector and dilettante painter, Johann Septimus Jörger and that is had probably been painted by Johann Friedrich Steinhammer, a painter, of whom it is only known that he worked in Nuremberg in the first quarter of the 17th century. Before 1700 at the latest, the work was recorded in the Prague collection of Felix Sekyrka of Sedčice, Count Vršovec; in 1718 it was a part of the collection of Count Anton Johann Nostitz. The painting represents the scene of Diana and Actaeon from Ovid’s Metamorphoses. In the concept of its composition, the painting is based on the works of Hans Rottenhammer, citing some of their motifs. The Prague is the earliest of the few known works of Friedrich Christoph Steinhammer, dated into 1620s, which can be related to it. The work in the Nostitz picture gallery provided inspiration for Norbert Grund, who captured it in the 1750s, in the painting entitled View of a Collection of Paintings from Deutsche Barockgalerie in Augsburg.