Sleeping Cupid (Caravaggio)

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, Florentine 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.

Works by Caravaggio
1593–1594
  • Boy Peeling Fruit (c. 1592)
  • Young Sick Bacchus (c. 1593)
  • Boy with a Basket of Fruit
  • The Fortune Teller (Buona ventura) (c. 1594)
  • Cardsharps (I bari) (c. 1594)
1595–1599
Del Monte paintings
  • The Musicians (c. 1595)
  • Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy (c. 1595)
  • Boy Bitten by a Lizard (c. 1596)
  • The Lute Player (c. 1596)
  • Bacchus (c. 1596)
  • Penitent Magdalene (c. 1597)
  • Rest on the Flight into Egypt (c. 1597)
  • Medusa (c. 1597)
  • Portrait of a Courtesan (Fillide Melandroni) (c. 1597)
  • Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto (c. 1597)
  • Saint Catherine of Alexandria (c. 1598)
  • The Sacrifice of Isaac (Princeton version) (c. 1598)
  • John the Baptist (c. 1598)
  • Martha and Mary Magdalene (c. 1598)
  • Portrait of Maffeo Barberini (1598)
  • Basket of Fruit (c. 1599)
  • Judith Beheading Holofernes (c. 1599)
  • David and Goliath (c. 1599)
  • Narcissus (c. 1599)
1600–1606
Most famous
painter in Rome
  • The Calling of Saint Matthew (1599–1600)
  • The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew (1599–1600)
  • The Conversion of Saint Paul (1600)
  • The Crucifixion of Saint Peter (1601)
  • The Conversion of Saint Paul on the Road to Damascus (1601)
  • Supper at Emmaus (London) (1601)
  • The Calling of Saints Peter and Andrew
  • Amor Victorious (1602)
  • Saint Matthew and the Angel (1602)
  • The Inspiration of Saint Matthew (1602)
  • The Incredulity of Saint Thomas (c. 1602)
  • The Taking of Christ (1602)
  • The Entombment of Christ (c. 1603)
  • Madonna of Loreto (Madonna dei Pellegrini, Pilgrims' Madonna) (c. 1604)
  • The Crowning with Thorns (Prato) (1604)
  • The Death of the Virgin (1604)
  • Saint Francis in Meditation (c. 1603)
  • Christ on the Mount of Olives (1605)
  • Ecce Homo (c. 1605)
  • Saint Jerome in Meditation (c. 1605)
  • Saint Jerome Writing (Borghese) (c. 1605)
  • Portrait of Pope Paul V (1605)
  • Still Life with Fruit (1605)
  • Madonna and Child with St. Anne (Madonna de Palafrenieri, Grooms' Madonna) (1606)
1606–1608
Naples and Malta
  • Mary Magdalen in Ecstasy (1606)
  • Saint Francis in Prayer (Cremona) (1606)
  • Supper at Emmaus (Milan) (1606)
  • The Seven Works of Mercy (1606)
  • The Crucifixion of Saint Andrew (1607)
  • David with the Head of Goliath (Vienna) (1607)
  • Madonna of the Rosary (1607)
  • The Crowning with Thorns (Vienna) (1607)
  • The Flagellation of Christ (c. 1607)
  • Christ at the Column (c. 1607)
  • Salome with the Head of John the Baptist (London) (c. 1607)
  • Saint Jerome Writing (Valletta) (1607)
  • Portrait of Alof de Wignacourt and his Page (1607–1608)
  • Portrait of Fra Antionio Martelli (1608)
  • The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist (1608)
  • Sleeping Cupid (1608)
1608–1610
Sicily and Naples
  • The Annunciation (1608)
  • Burial of St. Lucy (1608)
  • The Raising of Lazarus (1609)
  • Adoration of the Shepherds (1609)
  • Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence (1609)
  • Salome with the Head of John the Baptist (Madrid) (1609)
  • Denial of Saint Peter (1610)
  • The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula (1610)
  • David with the Head of Goliath (1610)
Paintings attributed to Caravaggio

Famous quotes containing the words sleeping and/or cupid:

    “When I think of him, and his six sons, and his son-in-law, not to enumerate the others, enlisted for this fight, proceeding coolly, reverently, humanely to work, for months if not years, sleeping and waking upon it, summering and wintering the thought, without expecting any reward but a good conscience, while almost all America stood ranked on the other side,—I say again that it affects me as a sublime spectacle.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.”
    —William Shakespeare (1564–1616)