Cupid at Rest

The god of love is off duty. He sits at the foot of a tree with his bow laid on the ground and a quiver of arrows in his hand, a small boy taking a break from his work. Cambiaso painted him around 1560 to 1565, and the pose of the legs echoes his Venus and Cupid at Sea, with the same rather solid, sculptural shadows. The picture reached the Borghese very early. Cardinal Scipione Borghese, nephew of Pope Paul V and founder of this collection, owned it by about 1633, when his inventory described a seated Cupid in a black and gold frame with foliage. By 1833 it was in the family's palace in town, in a room called the Hall of Venuses, beside two other mythologies by Cambiaso. The three hang together again today, here in the Room of Hercules.