The Bavarian Hans Rottenhammer was one of many late 16th-century artists who traveled to Venice and absorbed a classicizing style that they then reintroduced to southern German artistic circles. He arrived in the lagoon city in 1589, soon visited Rome, and returned to Venice a few years later to set up a studio.

Learning from his contacts with Italian artists and his many German visitors, Rottenhammer developed a style that appealed to the public upon his return to the North. He settled in the imperial city of Augsburg in 1606 and received commissions for a variety of works, from altarpieces to house façades, from both local and distant patrons.

In this drawing, Rottenhammer depicts a classical subject in masterful style with chalk and wash. The forms of Venus, Minerva, and Juno are of a narrow-shouldered, graceful body type that the artist learned from the work of Venetian artists such as Titian and Palma Giovane.