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A seated woman wrapped in a spruce-blue garment embraces a tearful, winged boy in this round painting. Both have smooth, pale skin with flushed cheeks, delicate features, and golden-brown hair. The woman takes up most of the painting. She sits angled to our left as she curls both arms around the nearly nude boy, Cupid. Her hair is plaited at the back of her head behind a blue-green headband. The upper arm we can see is encircled with a gold band set with blue gems, and one breast is bare in the shadow over her crooked elbow. The other hand holds the boy’s middle finger. Cupid’s body faces our right, toward the woman, but he turns back to look at the hand the woman holds. His other hand is lifted to his eyes, and a tear gleams on one cheek. His body is covered only by a white cloth that crosses his chest and covers his genitals. A silvery-white and tawny-gold wing juts out behind one shoulder. The woman sits on a pillowy rust-red cushion. One gray dove feeds another at Cupid’s feet, and a pink rose lies nearby. A field of olive green and mustard yellow suggests a tree behind Cupid and the woman. In the distance to our left, three pale-skinned, chubby babies tussle with mouths wide open in a garden near a beehive. Bees teem out of the conical hive. Peach-colored clouds skim the muted blue sky above. The artist signed and dated the lower left, “B. West 1774.”

Benjamin West

Cupid, Stung by a Bee, Is Cherished by his Mother, 1774

Not on View

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall (round): 121.92 × 122.4 cm (48 × 48 3/16 in.)

framed (round): 152.08 × 152.24 × 9.53 cm (59 7/8 × 59 15/16 × 3 3/4 in.)

Credit Line

Corcoran Collection (Gift of Bernice West Beyers)

Accession Number

2014.136.93

Artists / Makers

Benjamin West (artist) American, 1738 - 1820

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Provenance

Agmondisham Vesey [1708-1785], Lucan House, Country Dublin, Ireland; by descent in the Vesey family; (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 3 December 1926, no. 92); purchased by Walton. (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 25 March 1927, no. 95); purchased by Barclay; purchased by (Mortimer Brandt, New York); acquired by Mrs. E. Lovette West, Bronxville, New York, by 1950; her daughter, Bernice West Beyers [Mrs. Robert A. Beyers], Dallas; gift 1963 to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; acquired 2014 by the National Gallery of Art.

Associated Names

Beyers, Robert A., Mrs.
Corcoran Gallery of Art

Exhibition History

1775: The Seventh Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1775, no. 335.

1966: Past and Present: 250 Years of American Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 15 April-30 September 1966, unpublished checklist.

1976: Corcoran [The American Genius] Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 1976, no checklist.

2004: Figuratively Speaking: The Human Form in American Art, 1770-1950, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 2004-2005, as Cupid Stung by a Bee.

2005: Encouraging American Genius: Master Paintings from the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, NY; Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte; John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, 2005-2007, checklist no. 3.

2008: American Evolution: A History through Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 2008, unpublished checklist.

2009: American Paintings from the Collection, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 6 June-18 October 2009, unpublished checklist.

Bibliography

2011: Carson, Jenny. "Benjamin West, Cupid, Stung by a Bee, Is Cherished by His Mother." In Corcoran Gallery of Art: American Paintings to 1945. Edited by Sarah Cash. Washington, 2011: 52-53, 254, repro.