Diana and her nymphs discover Callisto's pregnancy

Painted on panel in 1599 and now in the Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht, this mythological scene depicts the moment from Ovid's Metamorphoses when Diana discovers that Callisto — one of her virgin hunting companions — is pregnant by Jupiter. The nymph's pregnancy, forced upon her by Jupiter's assault, is exposed during a communal bathing scene. Goltzius, who had recently returned from his Italian journey and taken up painting, brought to this subject both his unmatched knowledge of figure drawing from prints and his direct experience of Italian Mannerist figure composition. The bathing scene provided Goltzius with the opportunity to arrange multiple female nudes in a landscape setting, demonstrating his facility with anatomy across a range of poses. The moral ambiguity of the narrative — Callisto as victim and yet expelled by Diana — gave the composition dramatic tension beyond mere erotic display.

Panel support accommodates the detailed landscape and multi-figure arrangement characteristic of this scene. Goltzius models the female nudes with the anatomical authority of his draftsmanship training, using warm flesh tones against the cool greens of the woodland setting. Diagonal compositional movement guides the eye from Callisto's exposed form toward Diana's condemning gesture.