The martyrdom of Saint Lucy takes place amongst a multitude of figures, arranged across several levels of the picture plane.
The composition of the scene is dominated by a diagonal, from the soldier with his arm outstretched holding a dagger at lower right, across the saint, to the statue of Diana at upper left. The way the soldier with his elaborate headdress turns his head to the viewer leads one to speculate whether this is in fact Bellange's self-portrait. The statue of Diana, Roman goddess of the hunt and chastity, holds in her hand a smoking oil lamp. The presence of the statue symbolises Lucy's virtues, while the burning lamp is a direct reference to the etymology of Lucy's name, meaning 'way of light' (lucis via).
According to the Legenda Aurea by Jacopo da Voragine - a collection of hagiographies, widely popular in Medieval Europe - Lucy suffered her martyrdom in Syracuse, probably during the Diocletianic persecution. She was denounced by her fiancé to the Roman consul Paschasius, because she distributed her wealth to the poor in gratitude for a miracle of Saint Agatha. The Roman consul condemned her to countless tortures - including to be dragged by oxen to a brothel, burning her alive, boiling her in oil, etc. - all of which she miraculously survived. Eventually, she succumbed to a stab of a dagger to her throat.
In Bellange's large and virtuoso etching, the saint is depicted with her hands tied, as the dagger is plunged into her neck. She is depicted with her eyes still open, thus following the account in the Legenda Aurea that she only died after Diocletian was overthrown and peace restored.
The silhouettes and traits of many of the figures in the present composition resemble the cast of the other larger prints by Bellange. The overall arrangement of the figures may have been inspired by Anton Eisenhout's engraving of the Ecce Homo after Taddeo Zuccaro, while Bellange's figures as such are closely related to the Northern Mannerist style of Jan Muller's engravings after Bartholomeus Spranger (Bartsch 1 & 69).
The present sheet is the very early impression of the print (from the Prouté Collection, Paris), described by Griffiths and Hartley (1997, p. 73) as having 'smudgy margins' and lacking 'some of the burnishing found in later impressions.