The Looting of Europe, Nikolaas Verkolje The Looting of Europe. Based on Ovid's Metamorphoses (liber II, 848-875). The nymph Europa, daughter of Agenor, is on a beach to the right of centre. She decorates the horns of Jupiter, who has turned into a white bull, with a garland of flowers. To the right below the bull is Cupid with his quiver of arrows. To the left of Europa are her companions, a group of six nymphs and one girl, talking and picking flowers. Behind them trees with a view through to a mountainous landscape containing an ancient villa; through a second view on the right, a classicist city with obelisk can be seen in the background on the other side of a bay. Two ships lie in the bay. Various shells and loose flowers lie on the beach in the foreground; in the right-hand corner, two putti are measuring the depth of the water by means of a thimble.
