Caravaggio's Cupid

Thanks to the long-standing cordial relations between the Kunsthistorisches Museum and the museums in Florence we are able to show a late, great work by the Baroque master Michelangelo Merisi called Caravaggio (1571−1610): his celebrated »Sleeping Cupid« from the Galleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti).

In classical antiquity Cupid, the god of love, was always depicted as a young boy armed with bow and arrows. Such images were known as representations of Cupido (Latin for »desire«). It is no accident that the personification of desire is a small child − it functions as a reference to the playful, impetuous and accidental nature of desire, of love. Whomever the boy’s arrows of love pierce becomes a slave to his or her feelings. In the visual arts desire is often depicted as an emotion oscillating between an unintentionally triggered, dangerous emotional state from which there is no escape, and the positive effects of desire and love. What sets the Florentine painting apart is that Caravaggio chose to depict the divine personification of love asleep − the emotion of love has withered, or is still dormant.

In the presentation in Vienna visitors will also be able to inspect the painting’s back. The inscription on the canvas dates the composition to 1608. This makes the painting a fascinating addition to the master’s works in Vienna, all of which were probably executed some years earlier.

In a letter Fra Francesco Buonarroti, a knight of the Order of Malta and a man-of-letters as well as the great-nephew of the celebrated painter and sculptor Michelangelo (1475−1564), describes both the putto’s much-discussed removal from Malta to Florence and names the connoisseur who had ordered it: Fra Francesco dell’Antella, the prominent secretary of the Grandmaster of the Order of Malta. Shortly after the painting’s completion he had it transported from Malta to Florence, where he proudly displayed it in the city’s literary and artistic circles no later than 1611.

Together with the portraits of two prominent Maltese gentlemen, Cupid stretched out on his wings and his quiver is the only non-religious work Caravaggio produced during his sojourn on the island. Shortly after its completion the artist, who had fled Rome after somebody he had assaulted there had died of his wounds, was incarcerated for participating in yet another brawl. Caravaggio managed to escape from prison and reach Sicily but was expelled from the Order of Malta in absentia.

Caravaggio’s »Cupid« has often been compared to Michelangelo’s lost sculpture of »Cupid«. This and the composition’s dramatic lighting have inspired various religious and profane interpretations of this enigmatic depiction of a sleeping boy. They range from a reception of classical sources, i.e. mythological subjects, to references to the Passion of Christ (which may also apply to Michelangelo’s sculpture), to allusions to the transience of all earthly things (vanitas), a topic beloved of Renaissance and Baroque artists.