This extraordinary depiction of Apollo and Marsyas shows the moment after the latter has been flayed, defeated in his musical contest with the god and punished in uncompromising fashion. Although the subject was popular in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it was far more common the pair to be shown earlier in the storyline, before Marsyas has been submitted to his ordeal. Here instead, the artist has chosen to show the graphic depiction of the skinned body itself, in so doing drawing on anatomical studies of the era, such as that by Juan Valverde de Hamusco, Anatomia del corpo humano, 1560. Apollo, with his back turned to the viewer, adopts a singularly statuesque pose, reminiscent of the Apollo Belvedere and its classical ideal of male beauty, carefully studied references that create a picture of balanced harmony.

Vaiani was a pupil of Bronzino, according to Vasari, and enrolled at the Academia delle Arti in Florence in 1564. He worked on the extraordinary Studiolo of Francesco I de’ Medici, before refining his own style from the 1580s onwards. This canvas likely dates to his early maturity, and can be compared to the Adoration of the Shepherds, now at Santa Felicita, made in 1588 for the church of San Giovannino dei Gesuiti.