Chubby Babies in Paintings

You’ve probably seen them before, chubby babies gracefully posing in many different paintings. In official terms, these little ones are called putto, or putti if there are more than one. Putti are quite often confused with a cherub, also a chubby baby, but then one that refers to biblical angels.

A putto represents a non-religious passion, however, in the Baroque period in art, the putto came to represent the omnipresence of God. When you see a putto representing cupid, the chubby baby gets the name amorino.

We browsed through the collections on Europeana, searching for paintings with putti, cherubim and amorini. Below we highlight some of the best examples of these balletic newborns.