Cupid, Stung by a Bee, Is Cherished by his Mother

Benjamin West

National Gallery of Art

A seated woman wrapped in a spruce-blue garment embraces a tearful, winged boy in this round painting. Both have smooth, pale skin with flushed cheeks, delicate features, and golden-brown hair. The woman takes up most of the painting. She sits angled to our left as she curls both arms around the nearly nude boy, Cupid. Her hair is plaited at the back of her head behind a blue-green headband. The upper arm we can see is encircled with a gold band set with blue gems, and one breast is bare in the shadow over her crooked elbow. The other hand holds the boy’s middle finger. Cupid’s body faces our right, toward the woman, but he turns back to look at the hand the woman holds. His other hand is lifted to his eyes, and a tear gleams on one cheek. His body is covered only by a white cloth that crosses his chest and covers his genitals. A silvery-white and tawny-gold wing juts out behind one shoulder. The woman sits on a pillowy rust-red cushion. One gray dove feeds another at Cupid’s feet, and a pink rose lies nearby. A field of olive green and mustard yellow suggests a tree behind Cupid and the woman. In the distance to our left, three pale-skinned, chubby babies tussle with mouths wide open in a garden near a beehive. Bees teem out of the conical hive. Peach-colored clouds skim the muted blue sky above. The artist signed and dated the lower left, “B. West 1774.”