The young satyr is trying his skill on Pan’s own flute. Tradition has it that the flute was equipped with seven pipes – and called Syrinx after the nymph who was changed into a reed just as Pan thought he was about to win her. Pan’s roguish expression is unusual in Thorvaldsen’s work, and when the sculptor uses the motif again in 1831 there is far less temperament to it. The secondary sketch is done in pencil, quickly, flowing and soft – and reversed in relation to the principal motif.
