Two Putti with Flowers on a Ledge

This design for an overdoor decoration encapsulates the problem of recognizing whether a motif was being proposed as a fictive sculpture or three-dimensional ornament. As such, it emphasizes the ability with which artists explored the parameters of flatness and relief in architecture. It also underlines the wide-ranging functions of artists like Domenico Piola, who worked as a painter, draughtsman, printmaker and designer. This prolific artist executed many ambitious decorative projects in both sacred and secular sites, most of which are no longer extant. The decoration with two putti sitting on a ledge, a common motif during this period in Italy, could have been included in either type of site.