The painting is fruit of the collaboration of Gregorio and Lorenzo De Ferrari. The first was one of the protagonists of the Genoese Baroque season. His son Lorenzo, here at the beginning of his career, will be in 1734-1736 the director of the redecoration campaign that Maddalena Doria Spinola wanted to implement on the second noble floor of Palazzo Spinola and which will culminate with the creation of the Gallery of Mirrors.

Also in this painting it is represented a metamorphosis: the beautiful Io is been transformed into a white heifer by Jupiter to hide her from the jealousy of his wife Juno. At the center is Argo, the shepherd with a thousand eyes - hidden by a blindfold - to whom Juno had entrusted the calf because kept her away from her husband. Mercury, on the right, through the melody of the flute and the story of the myth of Pan and Syringa , manages to put the guardian to sleep in order to kill him and free Io from his control.