From New York Times:
WHAT is going on in this gorgeously executed 16th-century painting? A young man garbed in sumptuous white satin is about to embrace a frumpish young woman of serious mien, wearing a green gown and military-style boots. Her plain hairdo is topped by a laurel wreath. She pulls him toward her, away from a far sexier wench, elaborately coiffed, whose sultrier costume reveals half of her back, turned to the viewer. He looks away from both women, his face — in half-profile — wearing a just-rescued expression.
The work is “The Choice Between Virtue and Vice,” by the Venetian painter Paolo Veronese (1528-88). And guess which woman is Virtue? The frump, of course. Despite his foppish appearance, the man in white is man enough to choose her over Vice, even though she’s much less attractive and certainly more demanding.
More here.
