Alpheios pursues Arethusa, who is rescued by Diana, March 23, 1742

About the Work

The somewhat histrionic depiction of a tale from Ovid’s "Metamorphoses" presumably suited the customer’s taste. When the river god Alpheus pursues the chaste nymph Arethusa, the goddess Diana cloaks her in a thick fog and then transforms her into an underground spring that flows from Greece to Sicily. The drawing carefully executed in body colour exhibits its quality in details such as the rose, the clay water vessel lying on its side and the water pouring from it.