Love that opens a heart with a key

Description

The sculpture depicts a young man with his arms stretched forward, placed on a capital resting on a shuttle basin, it is: "Love opening a heart with a key." Despite the loss of attributes, it can be said with certainty that this is one of the four sculptures of Love that accompanied the outer balustrade of the "Island Fountain." The sculptures were to introduce the theme dedicated to the "Bath of Venus," as conceived by Cosimo II and Giulio Parigi . On September 26, 1618, plaster sketches of the Amorini, which had been taken from the pulpit of Prato Cathedral and were to serve as a model for the "sculptors" of Boboli were delivered to the Grand Duke . The statues were not executed until after May 24, 1622, the day on which marble was ordered for Giovan Battista and Domenico Pieratti and for Cosimo Salvestrini to be used for the Amorini of the Fontana dell'Isola . Through a careful reading of archival documents Gabriele Capecchi has reconstructed that the Pieratti brothers made both the statue in question and the sculpture of "Love smashing a heart with a hammer"