This isn't the type of question I ask very often, but a post about a Thomas Brooks Dresser over at Rare Victorian peaked my interest. John Werry raised the issue of whether the winged male child, shown at the top of this dresser as well as in countless other works of furniture and art, ought to be referred to as a "putti" (singular for "putto") or as a "cherub."
According to Wikipedia's version of the story, "cherub" cannot refer to the artistic representation of toddler angels, a claim for which Wikipedia provides no support in that article but does in another on putto. I use the term "support" loosely, since the reference does not appear to be academic or peer-reviewed; in any case, a forum poster known as Juan Carlos Martinez argues that "cherub" refers exclusively to the Christian theological figures, and that putto are only secularized versions of Cupid—and thus obviously not Christian (see the rest of his argument). Not wanting to leave the question unanswered, I did what I always do in any contest of English diction: I consulted the Oxford English Dictionary (which unfortunately requires a subscription to access).
Here is a brief history that the OED provides for "cherub":
), powers; principalities, archangels, angels. Cherubim were thus made the second of the nine orders, having the special attribute of knowledge and contemplation of divine things. Their angelic character is that which chiefly prevails in later notions and in Christian art.2.b gives this:
As the Christian notion was simply super-imposed as a kind of gloss upon the Hebrew, the two are not usually separable in med.L. or Eng. Milton completely blends them, as did e.g. Durandus in his Rationale Divinorum Officiorum (1286). In early Christian art, cherubim were app. coloured red, but according to some, blue, the seraphim being red. In modern art, a cherub is usually represented as a beautiful winged child, or as consisting of a child's head with wings but no body.
The entry for "putto" reads:
Thus, not only does "cherub" refer to both to the actual theological being as well as to its artistic interpretation (which can indeed take the figure of a boy), but "putto" appears much later than either the word "cherub" or the use of cherubs in art, and can apparently refer to either representations of Cupid or of cherubs in addition to being synonymous with "cherub" itself. So it appears that Wikipedia is incorrect, and that you could use either "cherub" or "putti" to describe the figure on the Thomas Brooks dresser discussed by Werry.
