Goltzius Sine Cerere

Venus sits at the center of a dense composition, flanked by Ceres on the left, who holds a sickle and a horn of plenty, and Bacchus on the right, who holds a cluster of grapes. Below them, a small winged Cupid reaches upward, while the figures are rendered with the dramatic muscularity and swirling lines characteristic of late 16th-century Dutch engraving. The scene illustrates the idea that love grows cold without the sustenance of food and wine.

Based on a line from the Roman playwright Terence, this allegory was a favorite theme for the Haarlem Mannerists to explore the relationship between physical appetites and the passions of the soul. Within the Western tradition, it represents the intersection of classical mythology with moral philosophy, reflecting Renaissance ideas about the biological and emotional prerequisites for Eros.