Luca Cambiaso was summoned by Philip II in 1583. He came to Spain to work at the Monastery of El Escorial and the Royal Palace in Madrid. By then, he was already a renowned artist in Genoa, thanks to works such as the fresco of The Rape of the Sabine in the Villa Imperiale di Terralba. In this drawing, which dates from the late 1540s, Cambiaso uses his characteristic energetic, freehand strokes to depict the rape of Deyanira by the centaur Nessus, an act of revenge against her and her husband Heracles for failing to pay the tribute that the centaur charged for ferrying travellers across the river Evenus.