This is first mentioned in the collection in Queen Caroline’s Bedroom at Kensington Palace in 1818, described as ‘Rothenamer, The Bath of Diana, Wood 1ft 7½in x 2ft 4½in. Good’. This description matches in everything except the quality judgment, which seems rather forgiving. The seal in the bottom right suggests that this comes from the Capel collection, a group of paintings of mixed quality acquired en bloc by Frederick, Prince of Wales, with the lease of Kew Palace.

The subject is the transformation of Actaeon, the hunter who chanced upon Diana naked and was turned by her into a stag to be pursued by his own hounds. He appears in the left background startled and starting to sprout antlers. The architecture of a grotto appears in the right background and a river god reclines in the left foreground.

The style of the painting is that of a crude copyist working in the manner of Titian and his followers. Two paintings in Charles I’s collection (402859 & 402917) give some idea of the style here coarsely imitated.