T his lively painting, executed by Gaetano Gandolfi in the last decade of the eighteenth century, depicts a playful winged putto who holds aloft a floriated laurel wreath and banderole inscribed “collucent floribus” (“they shine forth with flowers”). The phrase is drawn from Book V of Ovid’s Fasti, which celebrates the month of May and spring’s annual renewal. Gandolfi’s fluid handling of form, warm roseate palette, and painterly touch exemplify the artist’s distinctive style, which bridges the late Baroque and early Rococo.

The painting was formerly in the collects ion of Ilo Giacomo Nunes, Knight Officer of the Crown of Italy, who resided in Rome’s Palazzo Orsini.

We are grateful to Professor Donatella Biagi Maino for initially attributing the work to Gaetano Gandolfi and dating it to the final decade of the eighteenth century. Professor Biagi Maino's essay on the painting is available upon request.