Allegoryc. 1515-1525

What you’re looking at

A nude woman, pudgy child, and two satyrs, which have men’s heads and torsos with goat’s legs and horns, are in a landscape in this octagonal painting. The scene is divided in half by a tree stump which only reaches to the center of the composition. To the left of the stump, the pale-skinned, nude child stands and hunches over to draw on the ground with a V-shaped compass. Two pieces of paper and a violin lie nearby. The landscape behind him has a body of water leading back to a town with buildings streaked with peach, perhaps flames. A band of peach sky separates the blue silhouettes of mountains lining the horizon from the vivid blue sky above. At the bottom center of the painting, a shield with an oval horizontally striped with red and white leans on the boy’s side of the tree, which has one leafy branch growing on the left side. One satyr holds a jug and kneels close to the tree with his back to it as he looks back over one shoulder. He and the other satyr both have dark, peach-toned skin and full beards. The second satyr hovers to the right of the nude, sleeping woman, both hands reaching for her or the rose-pink cloth surrounding her. The woman has blond curls, a round face, and she sleeps with one hand resting across her belly and her head tipped to our left. The trio are on a grassy area enclosed by dense, dark-green bushes and trees.

Description from the National Gallery of Art.

How it was made

Oil on panel

Oil paint on prepared wooden boards, usually oak in the north and poplar in Italy. The rigid, smooth surface suits fine detail and thin, glowing glazes.

Oil paint

Pigment ground in a drying oil, usually linseed. It dries slowly, so painters could blend on the canvas, build up thin translucent glazes, and rework a picture over weeks. Canvas replaced wooden panels in the 1500s because it is lighter and can be rolled.