What Is a Putto?
A putto is a figure of a chubby, usually naked and often winged small child, common in Renaissance and Baroque art. The plural is putti. They appear at the edges of religious and mythological scenes, and the two bored, daydreaming putti leaning at the bottom of Raphael's Sistine Madonna are the most famous of all.
You have seen them a thousand times.
You probably did not know they had a name, or a long history.
Putto, the essentials
What it is: a plump child figure, usually naked, often winged.
The plural: putti.
The roots: ancient Roman art, revived in the Renaissance.
The famous pair: the two dreamy putti under Raphael's Sistine Madonna.
The confusion: putto, cherub and Cupid overlap but are not the same.
Borrowed from the ancient world
The putto is older than Christianity.
Plump winged children swarmed through ancient Greek and Roman art, often as companions of love and the god Cupid. When Renaissance artists rediscovered classical sculpture, they brought these little figures back, and the putto became a standard part of the artist's vocabulary, painted in glowing tempera and carved in marble across Italy.
An ancient pagan motif walked straight into Renaissance churches.
Sacred and profane at once
The putto is wonderfully two faced.
In a religious scene, a putto becomes an angelic presence, a small heavenly attendant, part of the sacred iconography. In a mythological one, the same chubby figure is an erotic companion of Venus and Cupid. The artist could use the same little body for holy devotion or earthly love. That flexibility is exactly why putti are everywhere, from altarpieces to bedroom ceilings.
One plump child, equally at home in heaven and in a love scene.
Putto, cherub, or Cupid
The names get tangled, so here is the difference.
A putto is simply a chubby child figure, with or without wings, sacred or secular. A cherub, strictly, is a high rank of angel from the Bible, though in everyday speech people call any winged baby a cherub. Cupid is a specific putto: the Roman god of desire, with his bow and arrow. So every Cupid is a putto, but not every putto is a Cupid, and a true cherub is really something else entirely.
Same chubby look, three different jobs.
The favorite of ceilings
Putti found their natural home looking down at us.
In Baroque churches and palaces, painters filled vast ceiling frescoes with tumbling clouds of putti, peeking over painted ledges, holding garlands, floating up toward the light. Their small, lively bodies filled awkward corners and softened grand scenes with a note of play. Look up in almost any Baroque interior and a putto is probably looking back down at you.
They are the cheerful crowd in the gallery of the gods.
You can meet the most famous pair in Dresden, under Raphael’s Sistine Madonna, and the Met holds a porcelain Putto as Cupid.
Common questions about the putto
What is a putto? A chubby child figure in art, usually naked and often winged.
What is the plural? Putti.
Where did they come from? Ancient Greek and Roman art, revived in the Renaissance.
What is the most famous example? The two dreamy putti at the foot of Raphael's Sistine Madonna.
Is a putto the same as a cherub or Cupid? Not quite. A cherub is a type of angel, Cupid is the god of love, and a putto is the general chubby child figure.
The little figure that conquered art
Few motifs are as universal, or as underestimated, as the putto. We have turned them into greeting card decoration and forgotten they came from Roman tombs and Renaissance altars.
But look again at Raphael's two putti, chins on their hands, gazing up in pure boredom while a vision unfolds above them, and you see why artists could not let them go. The putto is the human note inside the divine scene, the reminder that even in the presence of miracles, somebody is always a little distracted. That is why, five centuries on, those two small faces are still the most beloved in the painting.