In illustrating the goddess Ceres quenching her thirst on her quest to find her kidnapped daughter, Adam Elsheimer drew upon the ancient writer Ovid. That this artist, who concentrated upon narrative painting once he moved to Rome, illustrates a rarely depicted moment from The Metamorphoses (V: 425–486) suggests the impact that the classical tradition had upon him. Furthermore, the tenebrism created by the variety of light—candlelight and torchlight—reflects the intense contrast of light and shadow popularized by Michelangelo da Caravaggio in Rome in the early 1590s.