The slaying of Niobe and her children, from the Milesi façade

This drawing was copied from the façade relief of the Milesi Palace, on the Via della Maschera d'Oro in Rome, created by Polidoro da Caravaggio, in about 1526-27. The relief shows a number of mythological stories, including that of Niobe from Ovid's Metamorphoses. In this story, Niobe's fourteen children are slaughtered by the gods Apollo and Artemis, because her pride at having a large progeny angered their mother Latona, who only had two children.