Cupid Chastised

Bartolomeo Manfredi

Period

1600-1650

Theme

Love & Romance

Medium

Oil on canvas

Current Location

Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago

The Story

The physicality of the ﬁgures conveys the violent discord of the scene: the crouching, wide-eyed Venus; the furious, muscular Mars; and Cupid, whose naked ﬂesh and recumbent position render him particularly vulnerable. On one level a tale of interpersonal conﬂict, the story also symbolizes the eternal conﬂict between love and war. Bartolomeo Manfredi chose to depict ordinary individuals in scenes from the Bible and Greek and Roman mythology.

Working in Oil on canvas at 175.3 × 130.6 cm (69 × 51 3/8 in.), Bartolomeo Manfredi constructs depth through value contrast rather than outline, letting figures emerge from darkness the way they would under candlelight or through a shuttered window.

Look closely and the painting opens up. Objects you might pass over — a folded letter, a half-drawn curtain, the angle of a glance — were placed to be read. The scene trades in a shared visual shorthand for courtship and longing that period audiences would have decoded instantly.

Housed at Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago, the painting has passed through the hands of collectors, dealers, and institutions before reaching public view — a provenance that is itself part of the object's story.

“A silence so complete it becomes its own witness.”

From the museum

Cupid Chastised depicts a moment of high drama: Mars, the god of war, violently whips the young boy, Cupid, as punishment for embroiling the god in an affair with the boy’s mother, Venus, the goddess of love. Venus tries in vain to stop the beating. Surrounded by darkness, the three ﬁgures are boldly illuminated from the left, intensifying the composition’s dynamism and impact. The physicality of the ﬁgures conveys the violent discord of the scene: the crouching, wide-eyed Venus; the furious, muscular Mars; and Cupid, whose naked ﬂesh and recumbent position render him particularly vulnerable. On one level a tale of interpersonal conﬂict, the story also symbolizes the eternal conﬂict between love and war. Bartolomeo Manfredi chose to depict ordinary individuals in scenes from the Bible and Greek and Roman mythology. In so doing, he was following the example of the revolutionary early seventeenth-century artist Caravaggio, who had demonstrated to an entire generation of European artists that such lofty themes could be transformed into events experienced by ordinary people. Manfredi began his career as an artist in Rome by producing copies of Caravaggio’s works, including a painting (now lost) that likely inspired Cupid Chastised, commissioned by Caravaggio’s ﬁrst major patron, the inﬂuential collector Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte. Manfredi carried the Caravaggesque style forward, assimilating and adapting elements of the older artist’s approach, like the naturalistic portrayal of studio models in mythological roles and the dramatic contrast of light and shadow, known in Italian as chiaroscuro.

Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection

Materials & technique

Technique: oil painting, painting techniques, painting, painting (image making).

Provenance

Commissioned by Agostino Chigi (died 1644), Siena, through the agency of Giulio Mancini in March 1613; painting completed by October 1613 [see Wazbinski, 1996]; by descent in the Chigi family, Siena and Rome [recorded in 1644 Chigi inventory: "Un quadro con cornici di noce di alto braccia due 3/4 large braccia due rappresenta un soldato [Mars] che spezza [Amour] presente Venere, la quale cerca difenderlo, opera di Bartolomeo Manfredi Milanese scudi cento 100," see Archivio Chigi Armadio CCCLI]; by descent to Fabio Chigi, later Pope Alexander VII (died 1667), Rome [recorded in 1657 Chigi inventory, no. 57, “Un quadro dipinto di un Marte che spezza Amore e Venere che finge tenerlo [illegible] con strata alto p[a]lmi 7 incirca largo 5 1/2 incirca di Bartolomeo Manfredi con cornice dorata liscia,” see Archivio Chigi Armadio CCCLXXXI]; by descent to his nephew, Agostino Chigi III, Rome (died 1705) [Moir, 1985]; by descent to Prince Ludovico Chigi Albani della Rovere (1866-1951), Palazzo Chigi, Rome until at least 1917; the painting was probably moved to Ludovico Chigi's residence in Ariccia, near Rome, 1917, when the palazzo became property of the Italian government [according to c. 1983 draft of Moir article in Museum studies 1985, copy in curatorial file]. Armando Brasini (1879-1965), Rome, by c. 1935 [according to Carlo Sestieri’s letter, October 3, 1988, in curatorial file stating that he saw it there when he was 13]; Wildenstein and Company, New York and Paris, by 1938 [Voss 1938, p. 30 and Moir 1985]; sold by Wildenstein to Charles H. Worcester, Chicago, 1939 [letters from Wildenstein to Worcester, Nov. 16 and 21, 1939, in curatorial file]; lent to the Art Institute from 1939; given to the Art Institute, 1947.