The Goat Amalthea with the Infant Jupiter and a Faun [SEP] creator
The Goat Amalthea with the Infant Jupiter and a Faun
The Goat Amalthea with the Infant Jupiter and a Faun is the earliest known work by the Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Produced sometime between 1609 and 1615, the sculpture is now in the Borghese Collection at the Galleria Borghese in Rome.
Background.
According to Filippo Baldinucci, even before Pietro Bernini moved his family from Naples to Rome, eight-year-old Gian Lorenzo created a "small marble head of a child that was the marvel of everyone"
. Throughout his teenage years, he produced numerous images containing "putti", chubby male children usually nude and sometimes winged. Distinct from cherubim, who represent the second order of angels, these "putti" figures were secular and presented a non-religious passion. Of the three surviving marble groups of "putti" that can be attributed to Bernini, "The Goat Amalthea with the Infant Jupiter and a Faun" is the only one that is approximately dateable. In 1615, a carpenter was paid for providing a wooden