A standing female figure of Arethusa in classical dress, her weight on the left leg, the left arm held across her chest, mounted on a baroque stone base decorated with alternating smooth and rusticated bands. Around the top of the base below the figure are four bronze putti holding fish, four mermaids astride dolphins squeezing water from their breasts and four scallop shells. Arethusa was a nymph who, pursued by a river god, was rescued by the Greek goddess Diana, and transformed into a stream. The figure is also sometimes referred to as Diana although this seems unlikely on account of the marine character of the subsidiary figures and because she lacks the goddess’s usual attributes. The figure was either purchased by Henrietta Maria in the 1630s, or given to her by Charles I, and originally stood in the courtyard of Somerset House on the banks of the Thames until 1656.