A Hidden Sphinx by Agnolo Bronzino, "ex tabula Cebetis Thebani"
N 1568 GIORGIO VASARI DESCRIBED (from already dim memories) a now-famous allegorical painting that had been painted by Bronzino (Agnolo Allori) for Cosimo I de' Medici. Now usually known as The Exposure of Luxury, the picture in the National Gallery in London seems by general acknowledgement to have been done around 1545 (Fig. I).2 According to Vasari's recollection Bronzino had "made a picture of singular beauty" that was sent to the king of France, Franqois I. As best as Vasari could recall, the particulars of its complicated iconographic program were all devoted to variations on an erotic theme inasmuch as the picture included figures of "a nude Venus with [her son] Cupid, who was [shown] kissing her, and alongside [them] there were [other representations of] 'Pleasure il Piacere' and 'Idle Sport il Giuoco' accompanied by other 'Loves -Amori.' On the other side [of the composition] there were 'Fraud la Fraude,' 'Jealousy la Gelosia, and other [figurations of] 'Amorous Passions' [passioni d'amore]. "3 That there should be, then as now, a variety of interpretations of the intrinsic meanings of the individual figures in this complex painting is scarcely surprising. As a representative cultural product of the early Mannerist era, Bronzino was of course working at a time