Fries met de bestraffing van Niobe (plaat 4)

This engraving is the fourth plate of an eight-part frieze based on a lost facade painting by Polidoro da Caravaggio. It depicts the tragic result of Niobe’s hubris, as she and her children are targeted by the arrows of Apollo and Diana. The composition features the dynamic, muscular figures and dramatic tension characteristic of the late 16th-century Haarlem school.

Niobe’s story was a primary classical example of 'hubris,' a theme central to Renaissance moral philosophy and the study of Ovidian Neoplatonism. The dedication to Federico Cesi, founder of the Accademia dei Lincei, links this work to the intellectual transition from Renaissance natural magic to the early modern scientific method.