Caravaggio
Hope you had a great party yesterday evening! If so, you're probably going to miss today's amazing Sleeping Cupid by Caravaggio—because you are probably asleep like him. And it's totally understandable :)
The subject of a sleeping Cupid, bowstring broken and arrows cast aside, usually signifies the abandonment of worldly pleasures. It was commissioned for Fra Francesco dell'Antella, Florentine Secretary for Italy to Alof de Wignacourt, Grand Master of the Knights of Malta as a reminder of his vow of chastity.
We know from an old inscription on the back that it was painted in Malta in 1608 and, indeed, its warm glowing tones seem to bear comparison with other works of this phase in Caravaggio's career.
In the broader context of iconographical trends, it should be noted that the depiction of Cupid as a chubby infant rather than the graceful adolescent popular in the Renaissance, and evident in Victorious Love, was symptomatic of a new Counter-Reformation preference of characterization. Caravaggio, as usual, infused the new form with his own potent blend of observation and construction, however—a child sleeping in the shape of a parallelogram.
Sleep tight :)