The Discovery of Honey by Bacchus

Artist Piero di Cosimo (Italian, 1462–1522)

Dateabout 1499

Mediumoil on panel

Dimensionspanel: 79.2 x 128.4 cm (31 3/16 x 50 9/16 in.)
framed: 97.2 × 146.7 × 12.5 cm (38 1/4 × 57 3/4 × 4 15/16 in.)

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Terms

Object number1937.76

DescriptionIn this landscape, Bacchus and Ariadne, right foreground, are accompanied by groupings of satyrs and maenads who wield a variety of noise-making instruments. A swarm of bees settles on a hollow tree in the center foreground. The landscape in the right background is wild and forbidding while the town in the left background is idyllic. The light is warm, casting the scene in sun and shadow. Touches of red across the canvas lead to Bacchus and Ariadne.
Label TextPiero di Cosimo, who painted a number of important religious pictures, was a rather mysterious artist, his eccentric personality reflected especially in his paintings of strange animals and fantastic scenes. 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.ProvenanceAbout 1499, commissioned from the artist for a room in the Vespucci Palace, Florence, Italy, possibly on the occasion of the wedding of Giovanni di Guidantonio Vespucci to Namiciana di Benedetto Nerli; by descent with house in family; 1533, purchased with house by Piero Salviati, Florence, Italy; by descent with house to Lucrezia Salviati and her husband, Giovanni de' Bardi di Vernio [1534-1612]; by descent with house to Cosimo Ridolfi [about 1570-1619]; about 1608, sold with house to the Baglioni family; mortgaged with house to Monte Commune public bank; about 1676, purchased with house by Ludovico Incontri. (By 1851, Giovanni Freppa [1795-1870], Florence). By 1857, Sir Thomas Sebright [1802-1864], Beechwood, England; by descent in family to Sir Giles Sebright [1896-1957]; (1935, Vitale Bloch [1900-1975], Berlin and London, in partial ownership with Mrs. R. Langton Douglas, London and Waycross, Georgia); 1937, purchased by the Worcester Art Museum.

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