This terracotta was published for the first time by Brinckmann (1923) as a work in Bernini’s style, possibly attributable to Massimiliano Soldani Benzi (1656-1740). When Margaret Nicod Sussmann donated the work to Palazzo Venezia in memory of her brother-in-law, Ludwig Pollak, it was catalogued by Santangelo (1954) as Bolognese, given its similarity to a bronze by Giuseppe Mazza depicting Diana and Endymion, owned by the Bevilacqua family in Bologna. Jennifer Montagu, and subsequently Bacchi (1996), identified the artist as Giulio Cartari, thanks to the discovery of a marble version of the composition in the Summer Garden in St. Petersburg. The group had been bought in Rome in April 1719 by Kologrivov, on behalf of Peter the Great, for 1050 thalers. Kologrivov noted that the work had been made for Queen Christina of Sweden by a pupil of Bernini, following a drawing of the master himself. Kologrivov sent Cupid and Psyche to St. Petersburg, via Amsterdam, where is finally arrived in the summer of 1721, to be placed in the grotto of the Summer Garden. If Bernini had, as Kologrivov claimed, designed the composition of Cupid and Psyche, it can be assumed that he did so in the last years of his life, perhaps between 1679 and 1680, during which time he was in very close contact with Christina of Sweden. Cartari, then, may have executed this model during this same period.

 

Cristiano Giometti