The Fourteen Amorini: Cupid taming a lion

An etching after a detail of the fresco in the vault of the entrance loggia of the Farnesina, Agostino Chigi's villa in Rome, which was frescoed with mythological subjects by Raphael's workshop c.1518. In the fourteen lunettes of the bays are Amorini or Cupids, with the attributes of the deities who have done homage to Love. This shows Cupid taming a lion and a sea-horse.  

This print is lettered with the name of Raphael as the painter of the fresco and it is signed and dated by the printmaker, who identifies himself also as the intermediate draughstman. Numbered at the bottom centre: "XXIV". Below a blind stamp (not in Lugt). Plate 24 of Franz Schubert, Raphael's Darstellungen aus der Fabel von Amor und Psyche in der farnesina zu Rom: an Ort und Stelle (Munich, 1842). Schubert's publication after Raphael's Farnesina frescoes numbers 25 plates. Annotated on verso.

The fresco decoration in the Farnesina illustrates the classical fable of Cupid and Psyche, a story which was also frequently used to decorate Florentine wedding chests. Raphael's fresco scheme comprises two primary scenes in the vault (painted to resemble tapestries), accompanied by a series of episodes painted in the pendentives. The whole is encompassed within a fictive pergola, which gives the viewer the impression of looking up into the heavens. Only the upper part of the loggia is painted (the vault and its supporting pendentives and spandrels).