The putto (pl. putti) is a figure of a human baby or toddler, almost always male, often naked and having wings, found especially in Italian Renaissance and Baroque art. The figure derives from ancient art but was rediscovered in the early Quattrocento. Strictly, putti are distinct from cherubim,[1], but modern English usage has blurred the distinction, except that in the plural, "the Cherubim" refers to the literal biblical angels, while "cherubs" is used more often to refer to the childlike representations (putti)[2] or in figurative senses.[3]
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The word putto is Italian singular male; the plural is putti. The female is putta but is not used since it is the short form of puttana ("slut", "whore"); this derogatory meaning is retained in the closely-related Spanish vulgarity, "puta", Spanish short form for "prostitute".)
In early modern Italian, the word simply meant "child"; today it is used only with the specific meaning of a winged, child-like figure in art. In descriptions of art, some of the first known references to the word appear in Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists (1550/68).
However, putto seems to have acquired its meaning as a specific term in art history only during the modern period.
Putti are a classical motif found primarily on child sarcophagi of the 2nd century, where they are depicted fighting, dancing, participating in bacchic rites, playing sports, etc.
The revival of the figure of the putto is generally attributed to Donatello, in Florence in the 1420s, although there are some earlier manifestations (for example the tomb of Ilaria del Carretto, sculpted by Jacopo della Quercia in Lucca).
Putti, cupids, and angels (see below) can be found in both religious and secular art from the 1420s in Italy, the turn of the 16th century in the Netherlands and Germany, the Mannerist period and late Renaissance in France, and throughout Baroque ceiling frescoes. So many artists have depicted them that a list would be pointless, but among the best-known are the sculptor Donatello and the painter Raphael. The two relaxed and curious putti who appear at the foot of Raphael's Sistine Madonna are often reproduced.
They also experienced a major revival in the 19th century, where they gamboled through paintings by French academic painters, from Gustave Doré’s illustrations for Orlando Furioso to advertisements.
In the twentieth century, putti appeared in Walt Disney's Fantasia.
The iconography of putti is deliberately unfixed, so that it is difficult to tell the difference between putti, cupids, and various forms of angels. They have no unique, immediately identifiable attributes, so that putti may have many meanings and roles in the context of art.
Some of the more common associations are:
The historiography of this subject matter is very short. Many art historians have commented on the importance of the putto in art but few have undertaken a major study. One useful scholarly examination is Charles Dempsey's Inventing the Renaissance Putto (University of North Carolina Press, 2001).
 Triumph of Galatea (1511), by Raffael (Villa Farnesina, Rome) |
 Festival of Venus (c. 1635) by Peter Paul Rubens (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna) |
 Justice (1684-1686), fresco by Luca Giordano (Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, Florence) |
 Gustave Doré's illustration of Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso (1877) |
 St. Thomas Writing on the Holy Sacrament (1662), Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (Basilica of Saint Dominic, Bologna) |
 Putto with trumpet and skull, Sedlec Ossuary, Czech Republic. |
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 Putti holding crown of Queen Elizabeth I of England (c. 1620), Artist Unknown |
 A putto kills a basilisk, symbolic of Swedish occupiers and Protestant heresy, on the Mariensäule, Munich, erected in 1638 |
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