This signed and dated panel is – literally – a masterpiece, i. e. the sample of the artist’s work he is known to have submitted to the council of Nuremberg. The theme provided plenty of opportunity for the young painter to display his skill: with the dramatic rendering of the light, a widely diverse landscape stretching back into cavernous depths and naked figures in a great variety of poses inspired by Raphael and Michelangelo. Endeavours at foreshortening in the fashion recommended by Mannerist painting are conspicuous in the main group and the two repoussoir figures at the bottom right. It is thus to be assumed that the artist spent his journeyman’s years in Italy.