Perseverance

A warrior stands in armor while Bacchus, the wine god, rides up in a little wagon pulled by children and leans out to offer him fruit. The traditional title reads the soldier as Perseverance, holding his ground against temptation. Others look at the same scene and see the reverse, an allegory of lust, the warrior on the point of taking what Bacchus holds out. The panel keeps both readings open, and that ambiguity is part of why this whole group has frustrated scholars for centuries. Bellini painted it in Venice around 1490, one of a small set of allegories for a private house, images made to be read slowly and talked over. The little wagon and its team of straining children are a lighter register than the grave altarpieces he was painting for Venice's churches in those same years.