Caravaggio’s Cupid – 9781917273183

Usually housed at the Gemaldegalerie in Berlin, Victorious Cupid (1601-02) by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) is the centrepiece in a new focus exhibition at The Wallace Collection. Caravaggio’s painting, also known as Amor Vincit Omnia, shows Cupid, the Roman god of desire, as a young boy, in an animated pose while wearing dark eagle wings and holding two arrows. It was the last allegorical work Caravaggio painted in Rome.

This richly illustrated softcover print publication features an introduction by the director of The Wallace Collection, Xavier Bray, followed by five illustrated chapters by the volume’s principal author, Helen Langdon. A description of the painting and summary of Caravaggio’s early life, present Victorious Cupid against the background of his artistic development and the intellectual interests of his patrons, and within the broader context of the theme of “love conquers all”. Langdon examines the meaning of the painting, and considers how Caravaggio brings the subject to earth, from the heavens to the bedroom, mocking the idealisations of renaissance art.