1590. The Daughters of Cecrops - etching - 17.8 x 25.5 cm - Washington DC, NGA

Three elegantly dressed women are positioned around a large tree in a lush landscape. One sister kneels to peer into a woven basket, revealing a child with a coiled snake-like lower body, while a crow perched on a branch above watches the scene. This moment depicts the sisters' fatal curiosity as they disobey the goddess Athena's command to leave the basket closed.

Based on Ovid's Metamorphoses, this myth explores themes of forbidden knowledge and the chthonic origins of life. In the late 16th century, the birth of Erichthonius from the earth (via the seed of Vulcan) was often viewed as an allegory for the spontaneous generation of matter or the hidden 'fixed' forces within natural philosophy.