Pan und Syrinx

Pan pursuing Syrinx

In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Pan chases the nymph Syrinx through Arcadia. When she comes to the river Ladon and can flee no further, her prayer for escape is answered: she is transformed into reeds, from which Pan subsequently made his pan pipes. The figures were painted by van Balen; the landscape by a follower of Jan Brueghel.