A nymph on the left offers the infant Achilles to the wise centaur Chiron, who educated the youthful hero. The story is told in Ovid's Fasti (Book V, lines 385-6) and by Statius in Achilleid (Book II, lines 381 ff). The story was painted by Pellegrini and Batoni, among other eighteenth century Italian painters. Thetis, the mother of Achilles, is usually shown handing over her son but the figure here is not depicted as a Nereid and differs from the figure clearly intended as Thetis in RC 404980. Homan Potterton in Venetian Seventeenth Century Painting refers to another painting by Balestra of the subject, recorded in the Palazzo Pizzini at Rovereto in 1782.

The painting is pendant to Vulcan giving Thetis Armour for Achilles by Balestra and both are recorded in the Library at Buckingham House in the reign of George III. The pair probably date from c. 1715 and are close in style to a pair of allegories at Pommersfelden which are likely to have been commissioned at about that date.

Two other paintings similar in style, format and composition at Melnik have been related to this pair. The Melnik paintings have been dated 1710-25.