The painting is very large, and the figures somewhat disconnected, the composition divided into two by the tree at centre. In the right foreground we have a scene that would have been familiar to well-educated Renaissance viewers as Jupiter, having taken the form of a satyr, creeping up on the sleeping nymph Antiope, and lifting her drapery to view her naked. He will shortly rape her. Possibly the situation is only borrowed from this story, but all Titian's other mythological paintings for Philip show scenes from Ovid, where Antiope's story features (Metamorphoses, VI, 110-111). Scenes of satyr voyeurism or sexual assault, given titles such as Nymph Surprised by a Satyr, are found in art, mostly later than this, but only a very rash satyr would treat the goddess Venus in this way.

Venus or Antiope sleeps as yet undisturbed, not only by the voyeur, but a hunting scene above her, where hounds have brought down a stag, and immediately left of her, a satyr or faun with the legs of a goat seated on the ground, in conversation with a lady in contemporary dress. Immediately beside them stands a hunter, with large dogs, and at far left another huntsman blows a horn.

Over Venus' head, Cupid perches in a tree, with an arrow in his bow, apparently pointed at Jupiter. In the middle distance a naked couple, apparently both women, talk or kiss on the banks of a river. The river has a wide waterfall above the stag, and presumably then flows above the conversing couple before perhaps circling round behind the viewer to create the water behind the Jupiter/satyr, but this is not shown clearly, which is rather typical of Titian. To the right, the landscape includes a contemporary farmhouse at the top of the rise, and a distant settlement dominated by a church tower and steeple. Distant mountains complete the view, which like many Titian landscapes reflects the country between Venice and his hometown of Pieve di Cadore in the mountains, though he does not seem to have closely depicted specific locations.