In Greek mythology, Orpheus was the son of King Oaegrus and the muse Calliope, who learned to play the lyre from Apollo. The music of Orpheus was so beautiful that wild beasts became tame and rocks and trees were tempted to leave their places and follow him. This mythological subject provided Savery with a great opportunity to include a vast variety of species in one painting, many of them observed and drawn at King Rudolf II's menagerie in Prague. Savery was born into a Flemish family of painters. When their home town fell to Spain in 1580, the family moved from the southern (Roman Catholic) to the northern (Protestant) provinces, joining an Anabaptist community in Haarlem. Savery became known for his exotic landscapes full of animals, once being paid 700 guilders (an enormous sum) for a painting of "all the animals of the air and earth." He influenced a whole generation of landscape painters, including Esaias van de Velde and Adam Willaerts.

Generally regarded as a student of Leonardo, Cesare spent the later part of his career in Rome, where he was influenced by Raphael. Little else is known of his life. His work often displays an eclectic style, sometimes reflecting that of Leonardo's, Raphael's or Dosso Dossi's.

A skilled yachtsman, Signac favored coastal and harbor scenes. In this view along the Seine, Signac depicts the reflections of light upon land and water, thus creating a specific time and place. Although heavily influenced by Impressionism, Signac, along with Georges Seurat, Odilon Redon, and Henri-Edmond Cross, helped organize the first Independents Salon in 1884, the first public defection from the Impressionist movement. In the following years, both Signac and Seurat formed the theoretical basis for a new movement known as neo-impressionism, which was much more rigorous and scientific in its approach to the systematization of color. Like his good friend Seurat, Signac also adapted a pointillist technique in many of his paintings. In addition, Signac aided the physicist Charles Henry in the development of the color wheel. As evidenced in Les Andelys, Signac still utilized neo-impressionist techniques long after the movement was eclipsed, although his approach was much freer and more spontaneous than that of Seurat. Signac had a tremendous influence upon Henri Matisse, who visited his studio in 1904.