Neptune Pursuing Coronis, Who is Changed into a Crow

The sea god Neptune, holding his trident, lunges toward Coronis on a sandy beach while his sea-horse chariot waits in the surf. Coronis is captured mid-transformation, her arms sprouting dark feathers as she begins to take flight toward the clouds. In the background, several sailing vessels navigate the choppy waters near a craggy coastline.

As part of Goltzius's series illustrating Ovid's Metamorphoses, this work reflects the Renaissance obsession with the fluidity of form and the allegorical interpretation of myth. Within the Western esoteric tradition, Ovidian transformation was often viewed through a Neoplatonic lens as a metaphor for the soul's transition between different states of being or the hidden operations of nature.