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Lot Essay
The pupil and later the son-in-law of Ercole Procaccini il Giovane, Federico Bianchi was active mainly in Milan and Varese in the latter half of the 17th century. He also worked in Piedmont, however, and his great success in that region was rewarded by a gold medal given by the Duke of Savoy.
The subject of the sleeping Cupid, his quiver laid by his side, a witty and endearing conceit of classical inspiration, had been treated in sculpture by Michelangelo (1496, once in the collection of Charles I, now untraced) and in painting by artists such as Girolamo Mazzola Bedoli (c. 1555, Chantilly, Musée Condé). Here the subject is enlivened by the compositional and expressive contrast between rest and motion, action and suspense. Venus puts her finger to her lips, as though to hush the viewer whose intrusion might spoil the fun of the two joyful putti -- who, with the complicity of the goddess, are playing with Love's potent arrows.
The subject of the sleeping Cupid, his quiver laid by his side, a witty and endearing conceit of classical inspiration, had been treated in sculpture by Michelangelo (1496, once in the collection of Charles I, now untraced) and in painting by artists such as Girolamo Mazzola Bedoli (c. 1555, Chantilly, Musée Condé). Here the subject is enlivened by the compositional and expressive contrast between rest and motion, action and suspense. Venus puts her finger to her lips, as though to hush the viewer whose intrusion might spoil the fun of the two joyful putti -- who, with the complicity of the goddess, are playing with Love's potent arrows.