Cranach rarely staged Venus as a lone figure; she is usually accompanied by her son Cupid. On this small panel, however, she is not cast in the role of a mother. Rather, here the Olympian goddess uses her unearthly beauty as a means of seducing the viewer, appearing to pause in the midst of a veil dance before the latter’s eyes. So intimate a relationship between painting and admirer will most likely have been intended for a private “chamber of curiosities”. Yet the unusual aura of the Frankfurt Venus also earned her the attention of artists of the twentieth century. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s Nude with Hat of 1910 was supposedly inspired by this Cranach gem.