Orpheus Charming the Animals

Court painter to Rudolf II in Prague from 1602 to 1613, Hoefnagel
specialized in small format mythological scenes on vellum or copper.
This drawing is such a work, and its date and exquisite finish suggest
that it may have been a courtly commission. The subject was popular in
northern European art in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries, reflecting the vogue for encyclopedic representations of
nature.