Jupiter Assuming the Form of Diana - etching - 17.5 x 25 cm - Washington DC, NGA

Two figures dressed as hunters stand beneath a large tree, with Jupiter on the right leaning toward a hesitant Callisto. Although Jupiter appears in the form of Diana, his true identity is revealed by the eagle crouched at his feet. In the background, other members of Diana's chaste hunting party are seen moving through the hills with their hounds.

This work belongs to a series illustrating Ovid's Metamorphoses, which served as a primary source for Renaissance Neoplatonic allegories regarding the soul and divine intervention. In the intellectual circles of the Haarlem Mannerists, these myths were often interpreted through Carel van Mander's commentaries, which assigned moral and philosophical meanings to the transformations of the gods.