Uncolored engraving depicting a mountainous riverside area as seen from the balcony of a high building. Further along the balcony, at right, three European boys are washing an Ethiopian or Moor boy, next to a fountain shaped like a highly distorted dolphin. The four boys are an illustration of a Greek proverb, from Aesop's fables, to do with the useless effort to wash the black Ethiopian white; the intended moral was that the inner nature cannot be changed, but in later centuries it was increasingly used in racist depictions.
The balcony is also decorated with a pillar obelisk, upon which a man with a spear leans; another man, seated at the edge of the fountain, looks over at him. There is a Romanesque statue of a nude woman above the fountain.
Below the high balcony, the ruins of some structure are seen: it has a large domed roof and several broken pillars around it, and a statue standing in the dome. Human figures and sheep walk among the ruins. There are a few small contemporary (i.e. 16th/17th c.) buildings in the valley as well. On an outcropping overlooking the river which runs along the left side of the composition is a castle-like structure on a hill. In the mountains in the distance is tucked another castle, next to two waterfalls. With many clouds in the sky. After a design by Hendrick Van Cleve. (1525-1589)
