Despiau’s Diana represents a new direction in sculpture defining itself in opposition to Rodin’s example. Withdrawn and willfully mute, the figure does not appeal to or even acknowledge an audience. While this androgynous young woman may represent the virginal huntress Diana, she does not reveal her identity through a bow or hunting hounds, but rather by a more generalized sense of chastity. Despiau combines early classical poise and blends it seamlessly with the utterly contemporaneous close-cropped look of the 1920s, to evoke a sense of timeless modernity.