The picture certainly does not correspond closely to the story as told by Ovid in the Metamorphoses, in which Cephalus kills his wife with a spear while out hunting in a forest. On the other hand, it recalls Wynne Apperley's painting of the subject of 1915, which was included in the Last Romantics exhibition at the Barbican in 1989 (no.179, repr. in cat.), sold in these Rooms on 23 June 1989 (lot 147, repr. in cat.), and bought for the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. This represents the moment when Cephalus discovers his fatal mistake and mourns his dead wife in anguish; but the figures are nude, the deed has been done with bow and arrows, and the background is a rock encircled lake. Our picture could, in other words, represent an earlier stage in the story as told in these terms. Certainly it suggests the idea of sexual jealousy, which is the theme of the classical legend.