Venus with Amor the Honey Thief

The little boy has raided a beehive and now stands wailing, the honeycomb still in his fist, while the bees he robbed sting him in return. He is Amor, the god of desire, and the woman is his mother Venus, listening to his complaint. The joke is an old one, from an idyll by the Greek poet Theocritus, and the Latin verse in the upper corner spells out its point. Stolen honey is sweet, but the sting follows, just as the brief pleasures we chase come mixed with pain. Cranach painted this teasing subject many times for cultured patrons who enjoyed a nude with a lesson attached. Venus wears only a sheer veil that draws the eye rather than hiding anything. One small mark lets us date the panel. The winged serpent that served as Cranach's signature has its wings folded down, a form the workshop adopted only after 1537.