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Joos de Momper may well have undertaken an Italian journey and been deeply impressed by Alpine vistas. His grandiose, sometimes phantasmagorical mountain scenes frequently include a grotto, as does the present painting. While in other artists' work grottoes usually figure as elevated sites of religious pilgrimage, in this painting the motif becomes the focus of the composition. One of the three accessory figures is characterized as an artist, down on his knees and drawing the rocks in front of him. Although this is not the first appearance in Momper's work of the figure of the artist in the great outdoors, it is indicative that here he deals with the phenomena of the mountain realm. This enthusiasm corresponded with the emergence of Alpinism, represented in the sixteenth century especially by Swiss naturalists and litterateurs.
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