An X-ray reveals that there is an earlier version of the painting underneath the top layer of paint. This corresponds with a drawing by the artist featuring Dionysus (Bacchus) with a goat. In a book about the painting, the art historian Erwin Panofsky maintains that Poussin painted over the first image because he wanted to alter the original subject of the painting. The second version unites symbols of Apollo and Dionysus which, in one tradition, are aspects of the same deity.