The Nymph of Fontainebleau

Before the “Perseus” and the “Narcissus”, the first great sculpture made by Cellini is this Diana the Huntress, a relief executed for Francis I in France in 1543-44. A masterpiece of stylistic abstraction, in the rhythm and crystallisation that translate the Hadrianic style into a neo-Gothic taste, this emblem of a hunting lodge was exemplary for the School of Fontainebleau.