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Updated: May 14, 2025
Those curious little boy figures known as Chelsea and Bow Cupids are for the most part classed with ornaments, but they more appropriately belong to table appointments, for in olden time when the cloth had been removed these curious little figures were placed upon the mahogany or oaken board along with the dessert, as if to guard the fruit and the wine.
But it is not only for purposes of examining Roman internal decoration in situ that this art gallery of the Casa Nuova is available. Below the painted panels of the dining-room runs a long string of ornament, whereon are represented Cupids and Psyches engaged in the various occupations of Pompeian daily life.
All this is very fine; but all this is little to another ceiling, in some big Saloon elsewhere, Music-saloon, I think: Black Night, making off, with all her sickly dews, at one end of the ceiling; and at the other end, the Steeds of Phoebus bursting forth, and the glittering shafts of Day, with Cupids, Love-goddesses, War-gods, not omitting Bacchus and his vines, all getting beautifully awake in consequence.
The walls were covered with a pink-flowered Lucca damask, patterned with birds and dotted with dainty blossoms of silver; the furniture was of massive silver, festooned with florid wreaths, and swinging Cupids; in front of the two large fire-places stood great screens broidered with parrots and peacocks, and the floor, which was of sea-green onyx, seemed to stretch far away into the distance.
Look up at your ceiling; it's overrun with festoons of crude red and blue flowers, or it's covered with cupids and graces, or it bristles with arabesques and unmeaning phantasies. Every wall is painted; every grotto decorated. Sham landscapes, sham loggias, sham parapets are everywhere.
The ceiling was frescoed in the manner of the last century, with Cupids and Venuses, Vices and Virtues, fruits and fiddles, dwarfs and blackamoors; and the painted faces looked down on a scene of as curious interest as ever the extravagant loves and graces of Tiepolo might hope to see, when the boys of the college, after assisting at Te Deum in the chapel, entered the room, and took their places.
His face flushed and there were bright points of fire in his eyes. She saw what she had roused, and grew afraid herself. She pretended to become interested in the Watteau cupids on her fan. "How shall I describe her?" he said. "I have seen only paintings and marbles, and these are inanimate. I have never seen angels, so I can not draw a comparison there.
She herself lay all along, under a canopy of cloth of gold, dressed as Venus in a picture, and beautiful young boys, like painted cupids, stood on each side to fan her. Her maids were dressed like sea nymphs and graces, some steering at the rudder, some working at the ropes.
They are relics of the grandeur of Genoa's palmy days the days when she was a great commercial and maritime power several centuries ago. These houses, solid marble palaces though they be, are in many cases of a dull pinkish color, outside, and from pavement to eaves are pictured with Genoese battle scenes, with monstrous Jupiters and Cupids, and with familiar illustrations from Grecian mythology.
'For that matter, muttered Philip, a good deal ashamed and half affronted, 'you know I value the Protestant faith so that I never heard a word from the will old priest. Nevertheless, the boy, when I asked of our release, saw the gates set open by Love. 'What did Love look like in the pool? Had he wings like the Cupids in the ballets at the Louvre? asked Berenger provokingly.
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