Detail from Michaelina Wautier’s Triumph of Bacchus - Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

This lively detail from Michaelina Wautier’s Triumph of Bacchus (1650–1656), housed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, captures the exuberant sensuality and playful spirit of the Baroque through the figures of two putti and a goat.

In the scene, two cherubic boys—rosy, nude, and full of animation—grapple joyfully with a black goat garlanded in vine leaves. One child tugs at the animal’s horn while the other steadies it, holding a slender glass and laughing in delight. Draped cloth and grape leaves lend texture and rhythm to their movement, linking them to the surrounding company of Bacchic revelers.

These putti embody both innocence and mischief. Though angelic in form, they belong to Bacchus’s earthly realm of wine, pleasure, and transformation. Their plump limbs and golden curls recall the Renaissance tradition of Donatello’s spiritelli and Rubens’s frolicsome cherubs, yet Wautier’s naturalistic handling—her keen observation of flesh, fur, and gesture—makes them distinctly her own.

In Wautier’s composition, the putti become emblems of unrestrained vitality, mediating between divine ecstasy and human indulgence. Their playful wrestling with the goat, sacred to Bacchus, mirrors the painting’s central theme: the intoxicating, ambiguous union of innocence and desire.