Cupid with the Wheel of Time

Titian

National Gallery of Art

Painted entirely with tones of white and gray, a pudgy, winged baby-like putto, Cupid, holds onto a wheel in this vertical canvas. Cupid’s body is angled to our left, where he hunches over the shoulder-high wheel. He has round cheeks, delicate facial features, and chubby rolls at his wrists and thighs. He is nude except for white cloths fluttering across his torso and another lifting up behind him from around his neck. His face turns to us, and he looks down. Both hands are draped over the spoked wheel to our left. A tree grows behind Cupid, to our right, and an animal skull hangs from ribbons on a low branch, in the upper right corner of the canvas. The skull has a long muzzle like a deer. Cupid’s short curls, the cloths, and the ribbons swirl in different directions. A few plants grow around the base of the tree and clouds billow in the shallow background.