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Sleeping Cupid

Follower of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (Italian, 1573-1610)

Currently on View in H208
Image Licensing

This unidealized Cupid in the style of Caravaggio, brightly lit before a shadowy background, sleeps with his characteristic bow and arrow of love still in hand. The sleeping Cupid was a familiar subject in antiquity and enjoyed a revival among sixteenth- and seventeenth-century writers and artists.

Private Collection, Ireland.{1}
(Ivan N. Podgoursky [1901-1962], New York) by 1948;
G.H.A. Clowes [1877-1958], Indianapolis, in 1952;
Clowes Fund Collection, Indianapolis, since 1958;
On long-term loan to the Indianapolis Museum of Art since 1971 (C10016);
Given to the Indianapolis Museum of Art, now the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, in 2010 (2010.39).
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{1} A. Ian Frasier, former curator of the Clowes Collection, writes in A Catalogue of the Clowes Collection, Indianapolis 1973, p. xxvii: "For a long time this picture was in a convent in Ireland." This information has not been verified.

Object Information

artist
Follower of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (Italian, 1573-1610)
creation date
about 1610-1615
materials
oil on canvas
dimensions
25-7/8 x 41-1/4 in. (canvas)
approximately 34-1/2 x 49-1/4 x 4-1/4 in. (framed)
accession number
2010.39
credit line
The Clowes Collection
copyright
Public Domain
collection
European Painting and Sculpture Before 1800
colors

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