Italian school of the 17th century Sleeping love Marble Size: 23 x 55 x 25 cm Related work: -Anonymous, leaf from the Album of Busts and Statues at Whitehall, circa 1629, pencil, 16 x 24 cm, ink and wash, Windsor Castle, The Royal Library, inv. fol.258f Related literature: -Charles Dempsey, Inventing the Renaissance Putto, The University of North Carolina Press, 2001 ; -Stefano Pierguidi, "Orazio Samacchinie il Cupido dormiente antico di Isabella d'Este", in Atti e Memorie, nuova Serie, vol. LXXXIX,2011, pp.77-91. Carved from an irregularly shaped block of white marble, Sleeping Love is shown reclining on a draped mound. The child rests his right hand on an hourglass and his right foot on a human skull, attributes symbolising sleep and death. The subject corresponds to a Hellenistic theme that was very popular in Antiquity and later during the Renaissance. The collection of Isabella d'Este (1474-1539), a patron of the arts and a leading figure in the Renaissance, and wife of the Marquis of Mantua Francis II Gonzaga (1466-1519), included, among its most emblematic works, two Sleeping Cupids: one by the Greek sculptor Praxiteles, the other by Michelangelo. Two other sculptures of sleeping Cupids, documented in the inventories of the Gonzaga family in the early 17th century, subsequently joined the collection. Three of these four works were subsequently sold to Charles I, King of England, in 1631. The only graphic evidence we have of these marbles is a sheet reproducing them in sketch form (held by the Royal Library). A comparison of our work with the drawing in the Royal Library shows that the general composition has been repeated, reflecting the enthusiasm for this theme, which was widely taken up in Italy in the following century.