Allegory of Carnal Love (c. 1530): Artwork and History

Allegory of Carnal Love (c. 1530) is in the Art Institute of Chicago collection. The museum lists its creator attribution as Cristofano Robetta Italian, 1462-c.1535.

The work and its context

The Art Institute of Chicago describes the work:

Cristofano Robetta’s Allegory of Carnal Love depicts a scene of love and death in a friezelike composition, with two pairs of lovers in a triangle-like formation with a putto at each point. Standing at the far left of the scene is an enigmatic divine figure drawing in the bodies of the lovers closest to him with his sash. Is he, like the skull underfoot, a symbol of death, reminding the viewer of what lies in store?

Object facts

• Title: Allegory of Carnal Love
• Date: c. 1530
• Artist attribution: Cristofano Robetta Italian, 1462-c.1535
• Place of origin: Italy
• Medium: Engraving on ivory laid paper
• Dimensions: 30.2 × 20.8 cm (11 15/16 × 8 1/4 in.)
• Type: Print
• Department: Prints and Drawings
• Reference number: 1956.1043

Collection credit

Bequest of Mrs. Potter Palmer, Jr.

View the original

Explore the artwork in the Art Institute's collection, including its image and the museum's current catalogue details.

The description above is credited to the Art Institute of Chicago and reused under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0; HTML formatting has been converted to plain text. Other catalogue metadata and the public-domain image are provided under CC0 1.0.