print
- Museum number
- 1852,0424.1
- Description
-
The Chastisement of Cupid; in the centre Cupid, blindfolded with arms behind his back, bound to a trunk and attacked by a group of four women with shears, a sword and a mace; the sleeves of one woman are inscribed: 'AMOR VUOL FE'; circular format. c.1465-80
Engraving
- Production date
- 1465-1480 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Diameter: 165 millimetres (circular)
- Curator's comments
- The present engraving belongs to the so-called 'Otto Prints'; for this group see the commentary to Hind, A.IV.2 (P&D 1852-3-1-3). Another, and in Hind's view earlier, impression of this is in Vienna.
The same inscription - 'amor vuole fe[de]', love requires fidelity - on the woman's sleeve is also repeated in Hind, A.IV.9, 11-12. As Hind noted Cupid's pose was probably adapted from Schongauer's engraving of 'St Sebastian' (Bartsch 59, Hollstein 65). As was recently suggested by Alison Wright, the allegory of the Chastisement of Cupid has a literary source in Petrarch's 'Triumphs' where Love is defeated and humiliated by Chastity and her devotees. A bound Cupid also appeared on Giuliano de' Medici's banner painted by Botticelli for the joust of 1475 (see her entry in Patricia Lee Rubin and Alison Wright, 'Renaissance Florence: The Art of the 1470s' (London: National Gallery Publications, 1999), no.90, p.340.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1999/2000 Oct-Jan, London, National Gallery, 'Renaissance Florence: The Art of the 1470s', no.90
2003/4 Dec-Mar, Athens, National Gallery, 'In the Light of Apollo: Italian Renaissance and Greece', no.II.43
- Acquisition date
- 1852
- Acquisition notes
- The eight 'Otto' prints 1852,0424.1 to 8 were purchased at the same sale as 1852,0301.1 to 6. Those were purchased on commission, using the sum of £150 that the Trustees had authorised. Evans bought these other 8 lots on his own account, and offered them as a group to the BM for £200.
Provenance: Baron Philippe de Stosch (1731-1757); Wilhelm Muzel; Ernst Peter Otto (Leipzig, 1783); Klauss Otto (Leipzig, Weigel, 1852).
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1852,0424.1
