Apollo and Diana Punishing Niobe by Killing her Children

Niobe was the daughter of the proud King Tantalus of Phrygia. She married Amphion, the king of Thebes, and bore him seven sons and seven daughters. She bragged of her many children and chided the goddess Latona, mother of the twins Apollo and Diana, for having only two. In vengeance, Apollo and Diana carried out a massacre. They are shown in the clouds showering arrows down onto Niobe’s children.

The painting, in which the young Bloemaert followed the model of the Haarlem Mannerist painter Cornelis van Haarlem, was originally intended for Emperor Rudolph II in Prague, a patron of many Mannerist artists.