DescriptionThe artist ventured here with spellbinding bravura into the bucolic world of satyrs and nymphs, attaining the effect of a deliberately unfinished easel painting. The satyr has finished playing his shepherd's pipe and sprawls out with hedonistic abandon as he listens to the beautiful youth take his turn on a pipe. The satyr may represent Pan or Marsyas, while the youth may be Apollo, Olympos, or Daphnis. None of the Classical myths provides an entirely consistent fit with the composition, but it evokes a gentle, idyllic contest. It may allude to the contrast between the passionate spirit of the Dionysian (as represented by the satyr) and the beauty and clarity of reason of the Apollonian (the youth), which, according to Renaissance and Baroque humanists, were the two opposing impulses of artistic creativity.

ProvenanceSir William Richard Drake (1817-1890); Christie's, London , Drake sale, May 24-5, 1892 (part of no. 415); Dr. Francis Springell (Portinscale, Cumberland); Springell sale, London, Sotheby's, June 28, 1962, no. 39; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York , 1962