An outstanding representation of classical subject matter in Cranach is this beautiful nymph Castalia, lying on a crimson cloth in a field, who according to mythology was turned into a spring. The Latin text of the Humanist Giovanni Campani ("I, the nymph of the spring, sacred rest here, do not disturb my sleep") suggests to us the poetic frame of the landscape and the half erotic half dreamy vision of the nude, treated in accordance with the German taste of the time. The symbolic elements (the deer, the partridges and the quiver) refer us to the concepts of love and hunting. A work of the painter's mature period, it shows us the expertise achieved by his art.
