3-008-593 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

"Cupid", by Michael Angelo, in the South Kensington Museum, 1862. 'The god is represented as a youth of sixteen or seventeen years old, kneeling on one knee in an animated momentary attitude difficult to describe; the head is turned to one side in a movement elegantly contrasted with that of the torso; the right arm extends downwards, as if about to take up some object from the ground, whilst the other, holding a bow, is raised in the air, level with the head; a quiver of arrows and some drapery rest on the ground on the left. Various portions of the work, particularly the hair of the head and the drapery on the ground, are left unfinished...The upraised arm - which, from its disengaged position, must (in all probability) originally have been sculptured from a different block and adjusted to the statue - is a skilful restoration by Signor Santarelli, Professor of Sculpture in the Academy of Florence, the original arm having perished, either from exposure to the weather for a long series of years, or from having been fractured by pistol-bullets, the marks of several of which are visible in other portions of the statue, and which were wantonly fired at it whilst placed in the Riccadi Gardens, in Florence'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.