[2] The work could emulate the ancient Greek artist Antiphilus, inspired by a passage in Pliny the Elder's Naturalis historia.

[3] The painting is part of El Greco's rare Italian phase.

[6] It is traditionally thought to have been influenced by Jacopo Bassano, though recent studies have shown that it was instead an attempt to reconstruct a lost ancient Roman painting.

Pliny the Elder's Historia Naturalis named several artists who depicted the same theme.

The painting was inherited by Charles of Bourbon in 1734 and moved to Naples.