Andrea Schiavone, 'Arcas Hunting', about 1550

This is one of three mythological scenes telling the story of Callisto as told in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Ovid’s poetry was a popular source among artists of stories from Greek and Roman antiquity.

Golden-haired Arcas, the son of Jupiter, draws back his bow. His billowing crimson-vermilion cloth reveals his athletic naked body from behind. The head of a bear emerges from the woody undergrowth on the left but it is difficult to see the animal today, as over time the copper green glazes of the surrounding foliage have darkened to brown. Gold leaf glimmers through the sunlit trees and a breeze sweeps back Arcas’s hair, which, like his bow, arrow and quiver, is highlighted with gold.The delicate beauty of this scene belies the tragic events about to unfold.

This little painting, about 18 cm square, was made to decorate the end of a wooden chest, known in Italian as a cassone. It is painted on canvas and would probably have been glued to a thin wooden panel. Cassoni were important pieces of furniture used for storing clothes and household linen. A bride’s parents would give her a cassone as a wedding gift and she would take it with her to her marital home. These chests were frequently painted with the coats of arms of the two families joined by the marriage, or decorated with religious scenes or cautionary legends about love. They were often placed at the foot of the couple’s bed.

Jupiter seducing Callisto was the first episode of the story and decorated the other end of the chest. The nymph Callisto was a favourite of the goddess Diana. While Callisto was resting in a leafy glade, Jupiter appeared disguised as Diana. He seduced Callisto and made her pregnant.

In the long painting for the front of the cassone (Musée Picardie, Amiens) Callisto’s fellow nymphs reveal her pregnancy to a furious Diana, goddess of chastity. When Diana discovered that Callisto was pregnant, she turned her into a bear. In the third episode of the story, seen here, Arcas goes out hunting and, not realising that the bear is his mother, he shoots her dead.

The streaks of gold painted on Arcas’s hair, bow, arrow and quiver, and his fluttering drapery, turn this horrific event into a charming, decorative scene. Perhaps the choice of subject was to remind the new bride who owned this cassone always to be faithful to her husband. The quality of Schiavone’s paintings must have been greatly admired – these pictures had already been detached from their cassone by 1779 and were displayed in a Venetian art collection.