So much about this painting is brilliant. The theatre of its frotnality, the way marsyas is hung and presetned to us, the oppressive intensity of the shallow plane of viewing enhanced through Titian’s vibrant brushwork.

The small cutsey dog, however, is perhaps the most disturbingly brilliant detail I can think of off hand in any painting I know. Its the same type of dog which sits so placidly in his earlier Venus of Urbino. Instead here is hungily laps up the pool of blood which lies below the flayed and tortured Marsyas.

Here is a really good article which discusses this work and Titian’s ‘Late style’, it is written by Matthias Wivel at the Metabunker.