Unknown Maker, Italian

Turning to classical mythology for its subject matter, this finely painted plate depicts a scene in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. The Greek hero Orpheus, who has spurned the love of women after being eternally separated from his lover, Eurydice, is attacked by angry maenads, women who were followers of Bacchus. The stringed instrument that has fallen to the ground as Orpheus raises his arm in defense indicates his incomparable musical skills, inherited from his father Apollo, the god of music. The artist may have based the scene on a composition by the Italian painter Andrea Mantegna.