A dragon devouring the companions of Cadmus

Goltzius derived the left arm and hand of the foreground figure from Michelangelo’s sculpture of Day on Giuliano de’ Medici’s tomb. His back is an adaptation of another famous sculpture, the Belvedere Torso, in Rome. Here Goltzius relied on models – sketches or plaster casts – made by other artists. He first beheld the actual sculptures with his own eyes during a trip to Italy in 1590-1591.