The artist is bass
The plot of the picture was prompted by Basin Fresco with the same name from Herculanum. Once, wandering through the fields of Phrygia, Favn Marsiy found a reed flute. She was thrown by the goddess Athena, noting that the game on the flute herself invented by her divinely beautiful face disfigures her. Athena cursed her invention, saying that the one who lifts this flute would be cruelly punished. Not knowing about the words of Athena, Marsiy raised a flute and soon learned to play so well on her that everyone heard this unpretentious music. Marsius became proud and called Apollo’s patron of music to the competition. Apollo came to call. Marsius could not extract from the flute such marvelous sounds that flew from the golden strings of the leader of the muses of Apollo – Apollo won. Angry with a daring challenge, he ordered to hang around the hands of the unfortunate Marcia and tear off his skin from him. So Marsiy paid for his courage. His skin was hanged in a grotto in Phrygia and later said that she always began to move, as if dancing, when the sounds of the Phrygian reed flute reached the grotto, and remained motionless when the majestic sounds of Kifara were heard.