Putti, Lucan Graveyard

3D Model

One of two Baroque-style cherubim on the 18th-century headstone of the Lyons family of Watling Street, Dublin City, now buried in Lucan graveyard, Co. Dublin. Samuel Lyons, tanner & skinner died in 1803. The Baroque is an ornate & elaborate style of art that flourished in Europe in the 17th & first half of the 18th century. This carved figure is often called a putto where the cherub is depicted as a chubby-faced winged smiling male child with curly hair, like a baby angel. The putto or putti represents God or innocence & was a popular motif also used in Rococo art. “Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of heaven as a little child, he shall not enter therein” (Matt. xviii. 3, 10). The winged Cherubim representing the heads of little children is a symbol of the divine presence of God & also represents heaven & the ascent of the soul of the deceased from the body upwards towards heavenly paradise. In Psalm xviii. 10 God, “rode upon a Cherub, and did fly: yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind.”