Around 1531, Cranach (a leading painter of the german Renaissance, who had trained in Flemish studios) painted a Venus draped in a trasparent veil gazing directly at the spectator, whose refined flowing lines are far-removed from the style of ancient statues. The fine brushwork captures every wrinkle in the bark of the tree and every feather in the wings. Cranach decided to accompany his nude figure with a moralizing couplet by the Humanist Chelidonius which reminds us that voluptas is transitory and accompained by pain, as the little Cupid realizes when he tastes the honeycomb with its stinging bees.