Sleeping Cupid (Caravaggio)

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Sleeping Cupid

Caravaggio, 1608

Oil on canvas

72 × 105 cm

Pitti Palace, Florence

Sleeping Cupid is a painting by the Italian master Caravaggio.

Unlike many of Caravaggio's works, it can be dated accurately. It was commissioned for Fra Francesco dell'Antella, Florentiner Secretary for Italy to Alof de Wignacourt, Grand Master of the Knights of Malta, and an old inscription on the back records that it was painted in Malta in 1608.

The subject of a sleeping Cupid, bowstring broken and arrows cast aside, usually signifies the abandonment of worldly pleasures, and dell'Antella may have commissioned it as a reminder of his vow of chastity.