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The painting is a depiction of a mythological episode, the story of Pan and Syrinx, as told by Ovid (Metamorphoses, I: 691). The dynamic gesture of Pan, seizing Syrinx with one hand and parting the reeds with the other, and the close-up, di sotto in su viewing point, emphatically set the picture within a spectacular Baroque aesthetic that is typical of the artist's style. The contrast between the milky flesh of Syrinx and the tanned tonality of the satyr, whose body melds into the background from which he emerges, lends a marvellous rhythm to this pair of figures.
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