Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art

About this Work

Derived from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, this print illustrates the tragic story of the maiden Scylla, who is seen while bathing by Glaucus, a mortal recently transformed into a sea god. Glaucus pleads to be her lover, but Scylla, startled by his monstrous appearance, flees. Scylla is later poisoned in her bathing pool by a jealous Circe, who favors Glaucus. Scylla’s legs are transformed into barking dogs and fixed to the shoreline, where she became a cruel wrecker of ships.

The print and its companion piece, Apollo and the Cumaean Sibyl, share the theme of a mortal woman foolishly rejecting the advances of a god. Such stories appealed to Rosa’s baroque sensibilities with their mixture of magic, cruelty, and dark passions.