Elisabetta Sirani was the preeminent female artist of Bologna in 17th-century Bologna and one of the most fascinating figures of the Baroque period. Her career spanned barely ten years, having been cut short by her tragic death at age 27, and was distinguished not only by her remarkable oeuvre, but by her establishment of the first art academy for women outside of a convent.

Depictions of children were favorite subjects—perhaps a surprising focus for an artist who never married or had children. Of these the present work is arguably her most important. Sirani’s own diary records that it was painted for the powerful Inquisitor General of Bologna, Padre Giovanni Vincenzo Paolini.

The subject of Omnia Vincit Amor comes from a passage in Virgil’s Eclogues. In Sirani’s interpretation a joyful winged Cupid, naked but not lurid, engages directly with the viewer as he proudly demonstrates the superiority of love over earthly pursuits. These include the pursuit of knowledge, represented by the jumble of books (one of which is inscribed “PLI[NY]”); military ambitions, signified by the bow at lower right and the quiver full of arrows upon which Cupid rests his foot; and the arts, symbolized by the laurel wreath wrapped around the scepter held aloft by the triumphant child. 

Love conquers all!

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