Thursday, 8 October 2026

Cronus (Saturn) clips Cupid's wings as an image of time and carnal love

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Cronus (Saturn) clips Cupid's wings as an image of time and carnal love

Pierre Mignard from the collection of Hélène and Guy Motais de Narbonne, shown at the exhibition of their collection in the Fine Arts Museum of Orléans.

A naked man holds a nude child on his lap. What do you suppose this scene is really about? It looks for all the world like preparations for the rape of an infant.

Cronus (Saturn), who castrated and deposed his own father, is clipping the wings of Cupid. Old Cronus personifies the passage of time and the reckoning of accounts; Cupid, carnal love. Saturn was haunted by the fear that he too would be overthrown, and so he devoured his children. Cupid was, strictly speaking, his half-brother, and so in this case the devouring was dispensed with.

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