[4] The subject of the sculpture is Adonis, offspring of the incestuous love between Myrrha and her own father, the king of Cyprus.

[5] According to Ovid'd first-century telling of the myth, Adonis was then deadly wounded by a wild boar while hunting.

[6] In different versions of the story, the boar was sent by Ares, who was jealous of Adonis because Aphrodite was spending too much time with the mortal[7] or, as hinted at by Euripides,[5] by Artemis, who wanted revenge against Aphrodite for killing her favourite Hippolytus[8] (Adonis, as a hunter, ventured into the woods and crossed the border into Artemis' realm, and was thereupon killed by a boar).

Antique statues were often permeated with the Baroque style by the contemporary artist who carried out the work in the 17th century.

Indeed, according to the Comité français d'histoire de l'art, the opus "must be accepted as a veritable artistic creation [of Duquesnoy].