Cupid in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, October 2009

Cupid (Eros)
Roman, Imperial period, about AD 190
marble

# 1979.477

The youthful god of love, Cupid (or Eros ,as the Greeks called him) stands pensively, head lowered and arms at his sides. This is one of more than twenty similar marbles thought to reproduce a common prototype. It may in turn have been modeled on an earlier Greek masterwork- perhaps a bronze by the renowned Athenian sculptor Praxiteles. For the Greeks, statues of Eros served primarily as dedications at religious sanctuaries, but Romans thought images of the playful love-god a suitable decoration for opulent residences.

Text from the MFA label.