Orpheus

A young man is playing a lyre in a hilly landscape. His music is so sweet that wild animals have gathered round to listen: some walking, some crawling, some digging - like the mole, bottom right. Here Paulus Potter has depicted a scene from one of Ovid's tales of metamorphosis. The musician is Orpheus, who had the gift of enchanting wild animals with his music. The story gave Potter the opportunity to depict a wide variety of tame and untamed creatures. He painted around thirty species on this canvas, not counting the insects and birds.