18th century Flemish school

Flemish school of the XVIII century.
"Head of putto".
Carved marble. Black marble base.
Provenance: Maurice Maeterlinck Collection, main exponent of the symbolist theater and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1911, through his grandson.
Measurements: 24 cm (head height without base); 37 cm (total height with base).

Putto's head of outstanding workmanship and careful morphology. Its curly hair frames an angelic face and its style fits within a classicist language emulating the Greco-Roman putti, but with special naturalistic emphasis.
The "putto" is an element taken from Roman iconography, which in the Baroque period came to be considered the representation of the omnipresence of God. In Antiquity they were related to the Roman genii and the Greek daemons, and were frequent in artistic representations related to Dionysus. From the Renaissance onwards, this bacchic sense of the "putto" was taken up again, but a Christian interpretation prevailed. Thus, artists represented them as musical angels in religious scenes, and as companions of the classical gods in mythological scenes. However, despite their symbolic meanings, the "putti" are above all used as decorative elements, related to peace, prosperity, joy and leisure.