The Dream

As a man snoozes in downy comfort beside a warm ceramic oven, a demon blows wicked thoughts into his ear with a bellows. A proverb says, “Idleness is the devil’s pillow.” Temptation has arrived in the form of a classical Venus, whose gesture invites the sleeper’s attention. Two symbols of unsteadiness suggest the man is vulnerable: a putto attempting to hike himself onto a pair of stilts and the sphere of Fate that can go in any direction. An apple sits on the stove to remind us that the devil offers a warmed-over version of the original temptation in the Garden of Eden.