3818.
Tapestry; subject, a beautifully-wooded scene with a stream running down the middle of it, and across which two men, one on each side, are talking. French, early 17th century.
On one side stands Dionysius; on the other, and holding a bunch of vegetables, which he is about to wash in the brook, is Diogenes, who was not remarkable for his personal cleanliness. Dionysius, it would seem, has been twitting him upon that subject, and gets for answer that his very presence taints with dirt Diogenes himself, and the waters in which he is about to wash his pot-herbs: “Sordet mihi Dionysius lavanti olera,” as the Latin inscription reads above.