Sleeping Cupid

Glazed Terra Cotta - Faience
France, 19th Century
The manner of François Duquesnoy (1597 – 1643)


H 28 x W 55 x D 26 cm
H 11 x W 21 2/3 x D 10 1/5 inch









This glazed terra cotta sculpture depicts Cupid, the god of love, in a state of peaceful slumber. Created in the 19th century in France, it follows the style of François Duquesnoy (1597 - 1643), a renowned Flemish Baroque sculptor.

Cupid is reclining on drapery, his head resting on a quiver full of arrows, while a bow lies at his side. In this delicate pose, he evokes the tranquility and innocence of childhood, even within the context of the mythological deity he represents.

The theme of sleeping Cupid is a recurring motif in classical Greek and Roman art, later becoming a universal symbol of absent or languishing love during the Renaissance period, notably in Michelangelo's lost work from 1496, which itself was designed to appear 'antique'. Duquesnoy's sculpture of the sleeping boy god, active in Rome in the first half of the 17th century, inspired a series of small-scale sculptures of sleeping children popular in the 18th and 19th centuries.