Franz von Stuck ~ “Sin & Sensuality”, 1891
Franz von Stuck achieved the greatest success of his career with the painting Sin which was hailed as a work of genius at the 1893 exhibition of the Munich Secession. Rows of seats had to be placed in front of the painting for the crowds of fascinated viewers. Sin was a variant of the yet more suggestive Sensuality which Stuck had painted four years previously. So great was the demand for these pictures that Stuck painted at least eighteen versions of the subject of a woman entwined with a snake under the titles of Sin, Sensuality and Vice