A study showing the full-length standing figure of Mercury on the left giving a lyre to Apollo, kneeling down on the right. Around 1600 Annibale Carracci decorated the sculpture gallery in the Palazzo Farnese, Rome. This is a study for one of the mythological frescoes in the ‘Galleria’. As a punishment, Apollo had been forced to work as a herdsman - ineffectively, as Mercury stole his cattle. But Jupiter compelled him to return the animals, and as a token of reconciliation Mercury gave Apollo a lyre.