Diana (a.k.a. Artemis, in the Greek) is the daughter of Jupiter and Latona, his mistress. Reportedly she was born of Jupiter's head, not his loins (probably the story he gave his wife, Juno); therefore Diana is primarily cerebral, not sensual, having inherited her father’s intellect.
Francois Boucher, 'Diana After The Bath'; oil on canvas, 1742. Louvre, Paris
Boucher depicted Diana according to the Rococo style of his day (1742) though this is a rather dark-hued painting for him. I find this the prettiest Diana of all classic-art representations. A (laminated) copy of this hangs in the boat.
Diana is also noted as a great protector and guide for nice little girls, which, having raised two of those myself, was part of the reason this boat was named for her.
Another reason is that the boat was built by Hunter Marine, so naming her for the goddess of the hunt just seemed a given. She has the Roman name, not the Greek one, because her designer (my dad) was Italian.
Also she is clearly a Sagittarius, an archer, intellectual, a do-gooder almost to a fault, and of irreproachable principles; so being an Archer myself this seemed like even more of a good fit.
Emerald, ex-Ecstasy, ex-Diana, the original Cherubini 44 hull of 1974
The original (wood) Cherubini 44 ketch, designed by my dad for use as his own boat (and later turned into the plug for the mold and sold off as scrap, so that he never got his own 44) was named Diana; so this is yet another homage of the name. This hull was sold to a hydraulics engineer who made a total mess of it and was later bought by a nice veternarian in Virginia, for whom I worked on it in 2012, including adding a bow thruster and rebuilding most of the (engineer's truly terribly-designed) bowsprit.
Mythology depicts Diana as an athletic, independent, almost defiant young woman (probably a teenager) dashing about the woods with her bow and arrow, typically naked - rather like a deer. But though she appears vulnerable (and alluring) she is essentially uncatchable; for she is quick, clever, and too defensive of her own virtue to fall into the traps of the less-than-honorable.
DC Comics, Diana/Wonder Woman
Diana Prince, the presumed name of Wonder Woman, is named for the goddess and has many of the same character traits.
In the Jonnie Comet fiction saga Pamela, or: Virtue Reclaimed, the title character, an au pair childminder becomes a role model and protector for her two little charges and (appropriately) likens herself to Diana.
John Cherubini Jr., hull graphic for yacht Diana of Burlington
Diana’s hull graphic depicts her as a child, a reference to my last name (Cherubini, the little angels) and also depicts her in white, as in the coat-of-arms generally attributed to this family which has the angel rendered in argent (silver, for which white is used on a flag).
The Cherubini family arms includes the eagle, which appears only on arms granted or recognized by the Holy Roman Emperor, such as on the traditional flags of Austria, Germany, Russia, and other European countries.
John Cherubini, Jr., family flag, adapted from historic Cherubini coat-of-arms, c.1500s, Lombardi
Diana also has her own flag, to be used as an announcement during events (actually has angled hoist to permit flying on forestay). The same design is on t-shirts.
John Cherubini Jr., Yacht Diana of Burlington promotional flag; printed & sewn nylon
Diana of the Tower is a statue by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, cast in 1893 and erected atop the original Madison Square Garden (where Harry Thaw shot the MSG’s architect, Stanford White, for having defiled his wife, supermodel Evelyn Nesbit, when she had been 16. She had no Diana to protect her).
Augustus Saint-Gaudens, 'Diana of the Tower'; cast bronze, 1893.
Philadelphia Museum of Art
When the original Garden was torn down and rebuilt after 1925, the statue was stored at, then acquired by, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where it stands today (in spite of a rather insultingly low bid from New York to have it back). In 2014 the elegant statue of a shockingly (for the 1890s) lean, lithe young Diana was entirely cleaned and repolished, restoring a luster it had not had since new.
New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art has a copy from the original casting; so does the National Gallery in Washington; but neither of those has ever actually been a weathervane atop one of the nation’s tallest buildings (at that time).
My daughter Rachel drew Diana, after a visit to the PMA in summer 1997, when she was 5. ‘Why is she a nudie?’ she asked me at the museum.
‘Well; she was a goddess, and people of that time believed that goddesses were beautiful enough without needing clothes.’
‘Oh;’ she said, and went home and drew this, from memory. She kind of forgot the pose. She did get all the steps right!
Rachel Cherubini, 'Diana at the Philadelphia Museum'; crayon on paper, 1997. Private collection
- JC2
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