Father to the race of centaurs, Ixion tried to usurp Jupiter's place in Juno's bed. His punishment was to eternally turn, tied to a wheel, to expiate his crime. In Ribera's work, a Satyr has just chained him to the wheel and he makes it turn with the help of another Satyr standing behind it. The latter's terrible face can be glimpsed in the Tartar's shadow.

Ribera offers us a violent image, with the condemned figure upside down, accentuating the dramatic tension by his use of light, the monumentality of the figures, their forced anatomies and their gestural expressivity.

This work has the same political reading as its companion, Tityus (P1113). In 1634 it was acquired by the Marchioness of Charela, possibly for the Buen Retiro palace.