眠るクピド

A small boy sleeps, his bow slack and his arrows put aside, and only the wings tell you this is meant to be Cupid, the god of love, at rest. Caravaggio painted it in 1608 on Malta, where he had fled hoping the Knights of the Order would shelter him from the murder charge waiting in Rome. The commission came from a Florentine knight, Francesco dell'Antella, and a sleeping Cupid with his weapons laid down was long read as a sign of desire renounced, fitting for a man sworn to chastity. But there is nothing sweet about this child. The body is heavy and slightly swollen, the mouth open, the skin sallow, and viewers have argued for centuries over whether Caravaggio painted a sick or even a dead infant from life. It hangs today in the Palatine Gallery in Florence.