Lady with Cupid

This portrait, unusual in many ways, shows a lady accompanied by Cupid, the god of love. It was painted by a first-class Parisian artist around the turn of the 18th century. He did not create a miniature portrait in the conventional sense, but skilfully combined a portrait with a mythological representation. The lady is holding a quiver full of arrows in her left hand, which associates her with Venus, the goddess of love. She has taken the arrows away from her son Cupid as a precaution to prevent him getting up to mischief – much to the annoyance of the winged boy, who kisses the lady’s hand as he pleads for the return of his ammunition. She, however, hesitates while she looks at the beholder with her head turned slightly to one side, as if she wanted to ask him whether she really should give the arrows back. That would mean allowing Cupid to set her heart aflame – and that of the miniature’s recipient. But it is clear that this is what she secretly desires, because she presents herself to the beholder as very graceful and with a perfect, seductively deep décolleté.
The miniature painter employed luminous, pure colours that give the portrait a remarkable freshness. He may have painted it from a large-format original by another artist. Whereas the representation and the pose are reminiscent of works by Pierre Gobert, the face has certain aspects in common with portraits by Nicolas Fouché.¹
B. P.