Putto on a Dolphin

This figural group of a Putto on a Dolphin was an early work by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who had a greater impact on Roman baroque than any other artist. It was probably made around 1618, when Gian Lorenzo was still being trained in the workshop of his father, Pietro, or perhaps a short time later. Gian Lorenzo was probably inspired by a classical marble group on the same subject in the Galleria Borghese in Rome, but he introduced a most unusual variation: the dolphin, considered since antiquity to be a sea creature especially well disposed towards children, is deliberately biting the boy’s right calf. The lad has thrown back his head in pain. Evidently the dolphin is objecting to the boy’s wish to be carried across the sea, a different narrative from that given in classical literature, where Pliny, for example, tells of a dolphin befriending a poor boy.