After Van den Vliete Gillis, called Egidio della Riviera (Malines ? - Rome 1602), Italian, Roman, probably 16th century

Depicting three putti peacefully asleep, each arranged in a distinct pose, the present relief reproduces a lost work by Gillis van den Vliete, known in Italy as Egidio della Riviera. Documentary evidence indicates that the original relief was commissioned in 1597 by the Roman nobleman Ciriaco Mattei,¹ and was well known amongst della Riviera’s contemporaries. The art historian Italo Faldi identified several early replicas, including one formerly in the Giustiniani collection and another in the Palazzo Colonna.²

A version of the same composition, attributed to della Riviera, is preserved in the Galleria Borghese, Rome (inv. no. CLXXXIV).

The subject can be interpreted as an allegorical representation of sleep, depicting Morpheus, Phobetor, and Phantasos, the sons of Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep.

¹ Girolamo Martinelli, Roma ricercata nel suo sito, e nella memoria de’ suoi più celebri antichi, e moderni monumenti, Rome 1644, p. 111.

² I. Faldi, Galleria Borghese. Le sculture dal secolo XVI al secolo XIX, Rome 1954, p. 13. Galleria Borghese.