"Fraud" or "Deceit" in the guise of a mantichora
This enigmatic person has the face of a puppet, her arms and hands are wrongly added (seen from behind, whereas she is looking frontally towards us).
With the left hand she proffers a honeycomb, simultaneously she tries to hide a poisonous sting in her right hand. (Bronzino took the sting and poison gland of a scorpion as a model for this.)
"Fraud" or "Deceit" has the body of a lion (although her upper part is covered with a costum and a lattice or net, which gives the impression of fish-scales (another example of deceit or "trompe l'oeil" in this painting), and finally a snake-tail is winding up until to the dangereous sting.
If we look around for a similiar mythical being we arrive at the Mantichora, who is a mythical hybrid having the head of man and the body of a lion and the tail of a scorpion.
Agnolo Bronzino (1503-1572)
An Allegory with Venus and Cupid (1545)
London National Gallery
A masterpiece of Mannerism (late Renaissance)
high resolution image
"Fraud" or "Deceit" in the guise of a mantichora
This enigmatic person has the face of a puppet, her arms and hands are wrongly added (seen from behind, whereas she is looking frontally towards us).
With the left hand she proffers a honeycomb, simultaneously she tries to hide a poisonous sting in her right hand. (Bronzino took the sting and poison gland of a scorpion as a model for this.)
"Fraud" or "Deceit" has the body of a lion (although her upper part is covered with a costum and a lattice or net, which gives the impression of fish-scales (another example of deceit or "trompe l'oeil" in this painting), and finally a snake-tail is winding up until to the dangereous sting.
If we look around for a similiar mythical being we arrive at the Mantichora, who is a mythical hybrid having the head of man and the body of a lion and the tail of a scorpion.
Agnolo Bronzino (1503-1572)
An Allegory with Venus and Cupid (1545)
London National Gallery
A masterpiece of Mannerism (late Renaissance)
high resolution image