California Cupids in Art from around the Globe

Photos left to right: French Porcelain Cupid (1766-1773) by sculptor Etienne-Maurice Falconet from The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens; French Cupid Among Roses, or Love the Sentinel (1775) by Jean-Honore Fragonard from The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens; Unknown
Roman (A.D. 1 - 50) Bronze, silver, copper cupid sculpture at The Getty Villa; Love, the Captive of Youth, sculpture in Rose Gardens at Huntington Library & Gardens.

Are you looking for love? We've come a long way, baby, but when it comes to love, our modern visions of love--facebooking, texting or finding love on Match.com-- don't hold a candle to romantic contributions throughout the millennia showing cupid's hand in Roman, Greek and French cultures as seen through art.

Love is timeless as you can see when you visit some very special California art museums with amazing paintings, sculptures, pottery and vases depicting cupid.

Here's one twist on love: The fable of Psyche, derived from a second-century romance by Lucius Apuleius entitled "Metamorphoses" or "The Golden Ass," is but one story that has inspired many artists to create artworks. Renowned for her beauty, Psyche had incurred the envy of Venus, who sent Cupid to make her fall in love with a monstrous creature. Instead, Cupid fell in love with Psyche; after she was brought to him they became lovers. Jean La Fontaine's translation of this tale can be seen in an art piece at The Getty. Venus Reclining on a Sea Monster with Cupid and a Putto (1785-1787) was created in marble by English artist John Deare.

If you're looking for Love, look no further than California's art museums to see depictions of love spanning over 2,000 years, and collected from around the world.

Venus Reclining on a Sea Monster with Cupid and a Putto.
www.getty.edu/

John Deare
English, 1785 - 1787
Marble

While Valentine's Day is the ideal time to visit a museum and gain insight into how the world sees and experiences romance through millennia, a better option is to put it on your list of things to do & see, because you'll be busy traveling the state of California in your quest from cupid.

Cupid 1766-1773; pedestal: 1760
Maker: Sevres Porcelain Manufactory , French, active from 1756 to the present
Model:figure after model by Etienne Maurice Falconet , French, 1716 - 1791
Maker:pedestal flowers painted by Jacques Francois Micaud (1757-1810)
Former :formerly attributed to Henri Bulidon , French, act. 1745 - 1759
Dimensions: figure: 9 x 4 3/4 x 6 3/4 in. (22.9 x 12.1 x 17.1 cm.) pedestal: 3 x 6 1/2 x 6 1/2 in. (7.6 x 16.5 x 16.5 cm.)
Medium: figure: unglazed soft-paste porcelain pedestal: soft-paste porcelain, underglaze blue ground color, polychrome enamel decoration, black enamel inscription; gilding
Credit Line: The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. Adele S. Browning Memorial Collection, gift of Mildred Browning Green and Honorable Lucius Peyton Green

Object Number: 78.20.56
Label Text: At the Salon of 1755 the sculptor Etienne-Maurice Falconet exhibited a plaster figure of a seated Cupid holding a finger to his lips to urge the viewer to silence as he reaches with his other hand for one of the arrows in the quiver at his side. It was referred to as L'Amour menacant (Love threatening) for Cupid, the god of love, is about to strike. A marble version of the figure, commissioned by Madame de Pompadour, was exhibited at the subsequent Salon in 1757. That sculpture was recorded by 1761 in the garden of her Paris residence, the hotel Pompadour (today the Elysee Palace, the official residence of the French president). Falconet made a number of copies of the Cupid, which were sold to some of the most powerful and influential people of the eighteenth century, including Empress Catherine II of Russia. An immensely popular image, it was copied by many artists, becoming one of the quintessential emblems of the eighteenth century. The same year Falconet exhibited his marble Cupid at the Salon of 1757, he was appointed head of the sculpture studio at the Royal Porcelain Manufactory at Sevres, a post he would hold until 1766, when he left France for Russia. In the early 1750s, the manufactory had begun making unglazed porcelain figures, known as biscuit, that were popular because of their resemblance to marble. By the time of Falconet's appointment, the production of biscuit porcelain figures had become a significant part of the factory's output. Falconet's model for the biscuit figure of Cupid, a reduced copy of his marble original, was put into production in 1758 (for a discussion of copies, see the essay by Malcolm Baker in this volume). It became one of the most popular figures sold at Sevres and was referred to there as L'Amour Falconet. It was initially made in one size (approximately 9 inches or 23 cm high) and usually sold for 96 livres as an independent work that could be displayed under a glass case, although some were sold with dessert services to be part of a table decoration. This example is marked with a B in script, indicating that it was produced at the manufactory while Jean-Jacques Bachelier was head of the sculpture studio between 1766 and 1773. A pendant female figure, Pendant de l'amour Falconet, was introduced at Sevres in 1761 after a design by Falconet made specifically for the royal manufactory and not as a separate sculpture in other media. It later became referred to as Psyche, and was often sold as a pair with L'Amour Falconet. Between 1761 and 1770 more than 230 pairs were sold. The model for the octagonal pedestal on which the figure loosely rests was introduced by 1760. Because it was initially designed to accompany the figures of Cupid, the pedestal was referred to as a piedestal de l'amour. This is the earliest known dated example and predates the figure of Cupid that it currently supports. It is not known when this pedestal and figure were brought together. The shape appears to be a modification of the base for the vase hollandois nouveau (see cat. 78-80), a model that was introduced during the late 1750s. This example is decorated with an underglaze blue ground with four shaped white rectangular reserves at each of the long sides. Three of the reserves are painted with polychrome sprays of flowers. The front reserve has the inscription in French, "QUI QUE TU SOIS, VOICI TON MAITRE / IL L'EST, LE FT, OU LE DOIT ÊTRE" (Whoever you are, Here is your master [Love], He is, was, or should be [your master]), a well-known couplet composed by Voltaire for another sculpture representing Cupid that was produced earlier in the eighteenth century.

Cupid Among Roses, or Love the Sentinel
Date: ca. 1775
Maker: Jean-Honore Fragonard , French, 1732 - 1806
Dimensions: 21 1/2 x 17 3/4 in. (54.6 x 45.1 cm.)
Medium: oil on canvas
Credit Line: The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. Adele S. Browning Memorial Collection, gift of Mildred Browning Green and Honorable Lucius Peyton Green
Object Number: 78.20.4
Label Text: After 1768, Fragonard turned his back on the Salon and devoted his energies to less prestigious, more commercial endeavors. The critics that year wrote of him cynically, saying that, "instead of working for glory and for posterity, he is content to shine in boudoirs and dressing-rooms." L'Amour en Sentinelle is typical of the eighteenth-century taste for sentiment and sensuality in interiors, and Fragonard gave it a prominent position in his most famous interior decoration scheme, the suite of fourteen decorative paintings and rectangular overdoors titled The Progress of Love, now in the Frick Collection (fig. 00). The ensemble was commissioned by Madame Du Barry in 1771, but she rejected it before it was completed. In 1790 or 1791, L'Amour en Sentinelle was added along with three other rectangular overdoors showing Cupid in his various moods. The set was then sold to Monsieur Malvilan of Grasse. But Fragonard had already devised L'Amour en Sentinelle and its pendant, La Folie (Love the Jester), by the late 1770s as oval canvases; Jean-Francois Janinet (1752-1814) engraved them in 1777. Over the next two decades, Fragonard would paint at least twelve oval versions of this popular composition, making it very difficult to trace the provenance of any one version. As Cuzin notes, "the early provenance [of any versions of the subject] could be, either entirely or partially, the same as that for the other versions of the same subject." The present painting is thought to be an early example, but its provenance cannot be verified. In the eighteenth century, the painting was also known as L'Amour dans un buisson de roses (Cupid among roses). Roses and doves are symbols of love and thus of Venus, the goddess of love and mother of Cupid. Cupid's silencing gesture may derive from Falconet's much-copied marble L'Amour meneçant (Love threatening) made in 1757 for Madame de Pompadour, which appears in several of Fragonard's early paintings (see cat. 115). The viewer is left to decide whether he is urging discretion in matters of the heart or playfully pleading for silence as he pursues his quarry.

Rose Gardens

The three and a half acre rose garden was designed by Myron Hunt and first planted by William Hertrich as a display garden in 1908. In the 1970s, the garden was reorganized as a "collection garden" with more than 1,200 cultivars (approx 4,000 individual plants) arranged historically to trace the development of roses from ancient to modern times beginning with the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans.

rosegarden

The entrance pathway leads to an 18th-century French stone tempietto and statue, "Love, the Captive of Youth," encircled by "French Lace" roses. The beds north of the arbor next to the Shakespeare Garden have a paved walk, and feature Tea and China roses and their descendants, first introduced into Europe from China around 1900.

Legion of Honor Fine Arts Museum San Francisco

Nicholas Dorigny, French, 1652"1746
After Raffaello Sanzio, Italian, 1483"1520
The History of Cupid and Psyche and the Triumph of Galathee, 1693
Engraving
52 x 35.9 cm (image)
A037537

Jan (Johannes) Sadeler I, Flemish, 1550"1600
After Pieter Stevens, Flemish, circa 1567"after 1624

Landscape with a Couple Threatened by Death and Cupid, 1599
Engraving
Image: 219 x 270 mm (8 5/8 x 10 5/8 in.)
Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts
A014146

Engraver, born 1550 in Brussels, died 1600 in Venice

LACMA .lacma.org
François Boucher (France, Paris, 1703 - 1770)
Venus and Mercury Instructing Cupid, 1738
Painting, Oil on canvas, 27 1/2 x 60 in. (69.85 x 152.4 cm)
Gift of Hearst Magazines (47.29.10)
European Painting and Sculpture Department.
Currently on public view: Ahmanson Building Room 330
Since gallery displays may change often, please contact us before you visit to make certain this item is on view.

getty villa

Unknown
Roman, A.D. 1 - 50
Bronze, silver, copper
25 3/16 in.
96.AB.53

Getty Museum #11 (Venus Reclining on a Sea Monster with Cupid and a Putto)

Venus Reclining on a Sea Monster with Cupid and a Putto.
www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=113424

John Deare
English, 1785 - 1787
Marble
1 ft. 1 1/4 in. x 1 ft. 11 in. x 4 7/16 in.
98.SA.4

Venus, the goddess of love and beauty, reclines on a fantastic goat-headed sea monster in this allegory of Lust. The goddess entwines her fingers in the creature's bearda so-called "chin-chucking" gesture that represents erotic intentwhile the monster licks her hand in response. Cupid, astride the monster's long tail, is poised to shoot an arrow at Venus, while in the background a putti adds to the amorous imagery by holding a flaming torch, undoubtedly meant to suggest the burning ardor of desire. The sea goat carries Venus through the frothy waves, carved with energy and precision.

San Francisco
Cupid's Span Lawn Sculpture by Claes Oldenburg and Claes Oldenburg & Coosje van Bruggen 2002
The Embarcadero at Folsom St
Rincon Park
San Francisco, CA 94107

Norton Simon Museum Pasadena

Venus and Cupid in a Landscape, c. 1515

Jacopo Palma il Vecchio
Italian, 1480-1528
Oil on canvas
35 x 65-3/4 in. (88.9 x 167.0 cm)

The Abduction of Psyche by Zephyrus to the Palace of Eros, After 1808, probably before 1820

Pierre-Paul Prud'hon
French, 1758-1823
Oil on canvas
39-3/4 x 32-1/2 (101 x 82.5 cm)

Jean La Fontaine's translation of the fable of Psyche, derived from a second-century romance by Lucius Apuleius entitled "Metamorphoses" or "The Golden Ass," was widely read in the early 19th century. Renowned for her beauty, Psyche had incurred the envy of Venus, who sent Cupid to make her fall in love with a monstrous creature. Instead, Cupid fell in love with Psyche; after she was brought to him they became lovers.

Study After Guido Cagnacci: Venus Conquered by Love (from the Palazzo Zambeccari), 1760-61

Jean-Honore Fragonard
French, 1732-1806
Black chalk on paper
comp: 7-3/8 x 9-1/4 in. (18.7 x 23.5 cm); sheet: 13 x 17-3/4 in. (33 x 45.1 cm)