Pan and Syrinx

As told by the Roman poet Ovid in the Metamorphoses, the lusty satyr Pan eagerly pursued the wood nymph Syrinx. Guarding her virtue, she ran until she reached a river and desperately begged her sisters of the stream to transform her; just as Pan was about to embrace her, Syrinx changed into cattail reeds, and from those reeds Pan fashioned a set of pipes so that he could have her with him always. Jean-François de Troy represented the climax of the narrative: Syrinx, seen both before and after the transformation, looks fearfully at Pan as she falls into the arms of Ladon, the river god, while the river nymphs huddle together protectively in the shadow. Painted as a pendant to Diana and Her Nymphs Bathing, the picture shows the decorative grace of the Rococo — the women’s soft, creamy skin contrasting with Pan’s dark, muscular torso and the autumnal foliage of the background. The painting is held in the J. Paul Getty Museum.