Procris lies on the ground at the right with an arrow in her breast. Cephalus is weeping over her, holding his bow in his right hand. A putto stands between them, and indicates to Cephalus what he has done. In the background at the right is a bee; a goldfinch hovers above Cephalus.

Procris had given her husband Cephalus a marvellous hound and magic javelin. Loving but jealous, she then concealed herself in a bush to spy on her him when he went out hunting. While hunting, Cephalus came across the bush, and, thinking that it concealed an animal, hurled his javelin at it, mortally wounding his wife. Here Gennari substitutes a bow and arrow for the javelin. The story is told in Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book VII, lines 795-866.

A pupil of his uncle Guercino, Gennari came to England in 1674 and was considerably patronized by King Charles II and his court. This work, along with several other paintings of famous classical love stories, are recorded in Gennari's own MS. (MS. B344, Archiginnasio, Bologna) as all being painted for Charles II and placed in the King's Dining-Room at Windsor. A painting by Guercino of 'Cephalus and the Dying Procris' was recorded at Dresden, but destroyed in 1945.

Signed on the stone in the foreground: GENNARI.