Image: Piero di Cosimo The Discovery of Honey by Bacchus about 1499

Description: In this allegorical setting the mythological figures of Bacchus and Ariadne, in the right foreground, are accompanied by satyrs and maenads who make noise to attract a swarm of bees to settle in a hollow tree. The result is the discovery of honey, considered a step forward in the history of civilization which is symbolized in the background by the juxtaposition of an idyllic view of a town (on the left) and a wild and forbidding landscape (on the right). This painting resulted from the private patronage that developed in fifteenth-century Italy. Representative of a new demand for secular subjects, The Discovery of Honey by Bacchus is one of a pair of panels commissioned for the home of Giovanni Vespucci of Florence. The other, now in the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, is titled The Misfortune of Silenus.
Title: Piero di Cosimo The Discovery of Honey by Bacchus about 1499
Credit: https://worcester.emuseum.com/objects/4613/the-discovery-of-honey-by-bacchus
Author: Piero di Cosimo
Usage Terms: Public domain
License: Public domain
Attribution Required?: No