A putto is a figure in a work of art depicted as a chubby male child, usually naked and very often winged. Originally limited to profane passions in symbolism, the putto came to represent a sort of baby angel in religious art, often called cherubs, though in traditional Christian theology a cherub is actually one of the most senior types of angel.
Andrea Mantegna, detail from the Camera degli Sposi, Ducal Palace, Mantua, 1465–74
Three Putti Next to a Cartouche, 1727–1760, etching and engraving, 26.5 × 21.5 cm, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Venditrice di amorini ("The seller of amorini"), fresco from Villa Arianna, Stabiae (National Archaeological Museum, Naples)
The 6th-century Egyptian Hestia Tapestry, with six putti attending to the goddess Hestia
A cherub is one of the unearthly beings who directly attend to God, according to Abrahamic religions. The numerous depictions of cherubim assign to them many different roles, such as protecting the entrance of the Garden of Eden.
A tetramorph cherub, in Eastern Orthodox iconography
Depiction of the "cherubim of glory shadowing the mercy seat" (Julius Bate, 1773)
An ivory from Tel Megiddo showing a king sitting on a throne which is supplicated by a sphinx-esque winged hybrid.
Throne of Astarte from the Temple of Eshmun, the legs formed by two winged hybrid creatures.
