Stellio mocking Ceres because she drinks too avidly (Metamorphosis V:446-461)

This rare mythological subject from Ovid’s Metamorphoses—the boy Stellio mocking the goddess Ceres as she drinks—shows Stom venturing beyond his usual biblical repertoire. Painted in 1642 during his Sicilian years, the work is now in Munich’s Alte Pinakothek. The choice of an obscure Ovidian episode suggests a learned patron who wanted something beyond standard devotional fare. Stom's biblical subjects demonstrate the enduring vitality of the Caravaggist tradition in Sicily long after it had faded elsewhere in Europe.

Stom treats the mythological scene with the same candlelit naturalism he applies to sacred subjects, the goddess rendered as a sturdy peasant woman. The boy’s mocking expression is captured with sharp, unsentimental realism.