Born in Munich in 1564, Johann Rottenhammer trained under the court painter Hans Donauer. Like many artists of south Germany, Rottenhammer felt the lure of Italy. Writing in 1648, Carlo Ridolfi mentions a work by Rottenhammer dated 1589 with the signature “in Treviso”. A drawing of two floating angels in the British Museum is inscribed “Roma 18 August 1595”. During the Roman period, Rottenhammer began painting on copper and came into contact with other emigre artists, such as Paul Bril and Jan Brueghel, with whom he collaborated. Between 1595 and 1596 he returned to Venice; two religious subjects with compositions inspired by Jacopo Bassano date from 1596. Ridolfi mentions Rottenhammer was particularly impressed by Tintoretto’s monumental canvases in the Scuola di San Rocco and one drawing after Tintoretto’s Introduction of Christ in the Temple exists in the British Museum, dated 1606. In 1596 Rottenhammer married a Venetian woman, Elisabetta de Fabris. It was also in Venice that Rottenhammer came into contact with Adam Elsheimer.

In 1606 Rottenhammer returned to Germany, settling in Augsburg. He received a number of commissions for large-scale altarpieces and religious works. In 1610 he was working in Bückeberg near Hannover for Count Ernst von Scharmburg, decorating the town hall's Goldener Saal. An improvident life-style meant that he incurred lavish debts and died in poverty in 1625.

This work is one of two acquired by Charles II from William Frizell, referred to as 'oval painted stories in watercolour' in the Whitehall Inventory of 1666; the other no longer survives. Niobe boasted of her fourteen children or Niobids to Leto, mother of Apollo and Artemis. Taking offence, Artemis killed the seven daughters and Apollo killed the seven sons. Beside herself with grief, Niobe fled to Mount Sipylus and was turned to stone, a river of tears falling from her petrified face. In modern day Turkey, Mount Sipylus has a rock formation in the shape of a woman's face.

Rottenhammer’s treatment of the subject is closest to Philips Galle's 1557 engraving after Giulio Romano (British Museum, 1874,0808.1600), which shows the same moment: Apollo and Artemis appear in the clouds with bows and arrows while the Niobids are cut down while they attempt to flee. In his treatment, Rottenhammer's confidence as a draughtsman is evident, as is his absorption of the Renaissance masters, both Venetian and Florentine. The composition has a centrifugal force: the figures seem to spill out, as if repulsed from the clouds above. The work's oval shape emphasises this explosive feeling of energy. The painting lacks the artist's usual refined finish; the figures are sketchy and the clouds in the upper part are hazy and inarticulate. It is similar in composition and style to Rottenhammer's work between 1600 and 1604. His Rape of the Sabines (1597, private collection) has a very similarly composed foreground with almost the same pose in the female figure on the left. The Fall of Phaeton (signed and dated 1604, Mauritshuis) has a comparable chaotic composition and the figure of the man on the left with head turned back is very reminiscent of the soldier in the Royal Collection's painting.