Actaeon door zijn honden aangevallen c. 1636 - 1670

This engraving of Actaeon being attacked by dogs was created by Crispijn van de Passe the Younger, presumably in the Netherlands, sometime in the first half of the 17th century. Van de Passe’s image illustrates a story from Ovid’s *Metamorphoses*, in which the hunter Actaeon is punished for seeing the goddess Diana bathing naked. The image emphasizes Actaeon’s transformation, showing him already with the head of a stag, kneeling and holding up his hands as if in supplication. He has trespassed against a social boundary and now faces the consequence, death at the teeth of his own hunting dogs. As a printmaker, Van de Passe was connected to a wide network of publishers and distributors that helped disseminate images and ideas across Europe. Prints were relatively inexpensive and could be collected in albums or framed and hung on the wall. To understand this image better, we might investigate the role of classical mythology in the visual culture of the Dutch Republic, the relationship between printmaking and the book trade, and the market for secular engravings among middle-class collectors.