This oil painting shows a scene from a very popular poem by Virgil called The Aeneid. The Trojan Aeneas has been injured by an arrow and Iapis is trying to remove it. Dramatic pieces such as this would have hung in the public areas of Italian palaces to inspire visitors and show the family's wealth. Heroic images like this were popular in Italy at the time.

In fact it is not the doctor who saves the Trojan; Aeneas's mother Venus secretly adds some medicine to a water bowl and cures the injury. The soldiers don't know they have been helped by her. The soldiers are at the mercy of the Roman Gods.

 

Aeneas survived the battle and his children helped make Italy a powerful country. This means the painting was even more relevant to the Italian family who owned it. It is a mythical story about the origins of their homeland.