598 - Flemish Master, c. 1650

Flemish Master, c. 1650 - Cupid on a Shell - Oil on canvas, mounted on board. 110 x 78 cm. Soiled. Cracks along the edges. Some restoration. In the painting, the seashell upon which Cupid appears with his bow and quiver alludes to the relationship between the little god of love and his mother, the goddess of love Venus, who emerged from a seashell as the “foam-born” goddess. This type of image, rarely encountered in Baroque painting as seen here, owes its conceptual origin to a depiction attributed to Anton van Dyck, in which the Christ Child, as Salvator Mundi (Savior of the World), stands on a globe entwined by a serpent, holding a cross-staff (see Erik Larsen, L’opera completa di Van Dyck, 1980, no. 569). Thus, a Christian iconographic motif was successfully transformed into a secular subject—presumably by a master who can be counted among Van Dyck’s direct Flemish successors.