Detail of the Demidoff Table in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, July 2007

La Table aux Amours (The Demidoff Table), 1845
Lorenzo Bartolini (Italian, 1777–1850)
Marble; Diam. 54 in. (137.2 cm), H. 64 in. (162.6 cm)
Gift of Le Duc de Loubat, 1903 (03.11a–d)

Commissioned by Count Anatoly Nicolaevich Demidoff, this subject is a complex, cosmological allegory best described in the sculptor's own words: "Stretched out upon the plan of the world is Cupid, god of generation, sustaining and watching over the symbolic genius of dissolute wealth without virtue, who snores in his sleep … dreaming of past diversions in pleasure. Left to himself, the genius of ambitious rectitude in work sleeps the agitated sleep of misfortune and glory … his head extending beyond the periphery of the world." The original plaster is in the Gipsoteca Bartoliniana, Florence.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/toah/ho/10/eus/hod_03.11a-d.htm