Talk:Diana Fountain, Bushy Park

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The statue and fountain known as the Diana Fountain was designed by the French sculptor, Hubert Le Sueur for Charles I. He submitted an invoice in 1637 for a 'great Diana' for £200. The assumption has to be that this was the statue which was placed on a fountain, also designed by Le Sueur three years previously.

The statue and fountain were set in the garden of Henrietta Maria at the royal residence of Somerset House. Diana (Greek: Artemis) was in the first rank of both Greek and Roman gods and was an appropriate subject for a Queen's garden. It is interesting that the Walpole Papers reveal that the King consistently refused to pay the full amount for the several works carried out for him by Le Sueur. The invoice for the 'great Diana' was the only one paid in full from the royal coffers.

During the Commonwealth, the statue and fountain were moved from Somerset House to Hampton Court in 1656 and placed in the Privy Garden there. In an inventory of Cromwell's goods following the accession of Charles II there is a reference to the statue on a fountain 'known as Arethusa': an appropriate name for a fountain as it was Diana (Artemis) who transformed a water nymph called Arethusa into a fountain to save her from the unwanted attentions of a minor river god. Interestingly, Latin/English dictionaries in the last century gave 'fountain' as a meaning of the word 'Arethusa'. The statue of Diana (Artemis) is placed on top of the fountain (Arethusa) as a powerful image of the protection offered by this great goddess.

At the end of the seventeenth century, Christopher Wren drew up his grand plans for an avenue to run from the Palace gardens through the length of Bushy Park. There are references to repairs to the statue known as Diana and to the cost of a further plinth made for the fountain. In 1713 the statue and fountain were placed in a basin in the middle of Wren's grand avenue, where they have been known and loved as 'the Diana' for the last three hundred years.

For some obscure reason, possibly following the installation of a troubled water construction named after Princess Diana in Hyde Park, The Royal Parks have now chosen to refer to the statue in Bushy Park as 'Arethusa'. Any enquiry as to the reason or evidence for this new name has been ignored. No historical reference has been forthcoming. The statue was designed and built on the orders of Charles I, who was not only a stickler for protocol, so would never have created a mere water nymph for his queen; It was far too lowly - only a goddess would do, but he was also making sure that his gardens were rivals to the French gardens; another reason for having a statue of a goddess rather than a water nymph, so the naming of a statue after an insignificant water nymph, which had been bought by a king for his queen's garden, is absurd.

The Royal Parks should keep the Diana name for this statue. It has been its name for best part of 400 years and should remain so.

There will be growing interest in it in the years to come with its restoration due, so we should state quite clearly now that it is "Diana" and not the unsubstantiated "Arethusa".

One further piece of evidence for Diana is the two Titian paintings Diana and Callisto (circa 1555-1559) and The Death of Actaeon (circa 1559-75). Both show her hair in a very similar style to the Bushy Diana. One has a simple crescent and the other a more complicated decoration. The Bushy Diana also has a crescent which may become more obvious after the restoration — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.164.208.228 (talk • contribs)
 * The article tries to cover the controversy, but as with any controversy it would be best resolved off wikpedia. I would hope that if some classicist can explain to the Royal Parks how Diana came to be depicted without a bow, or better still a painting or description is unearthed of "the Great Diana", then the matter can be settled in favour of the statue being intended to be Diana. But in the meantime are there any reliable sources that we have missed in writing this article? Jonathan Cardy (talk) 13:38, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

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