For the first time in history, one of Caravaggio’s most disarming and audacious works, Victorious Cupid (Amor Vincit Omnia, 1601–02), will be shown in the UK. From 26 November 2025 to 12 April 2026, the Wallace Collection will host the masterpiece, on loan from Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie, in a tightly focused yet thematically rich free display.

The painting—depicting a nude, life-sized Cupid striding forward in unapologetic triumph, clutching arrows and bow amid the spoils of war and art—was created at the height of Caravaggio’s career. The god’s grin is knowing, almost taunting, his wings slightly askew, his body lit with the artist’s trademark chiaroscuro. The work will be paired with the Wallace Collection’s own Love Triumphant, an 18th-century marble by Tassaert, to explore the Renaissance debate of paragone, the rivalry between painting and sculpture.

For Wallace Collection director Xavier Bray, this is more than a loan—it’s an event decades in the making. “This is a historic first for the UK,” Bray remarked. “It is rare that a painting with such power, intimacy, and provocation crosses borders. Visitors will see Caravaggio’s genius unfiltered, in direct conversation with sculpture.”

The loan also offers UK audiences an unmissable opportunity to examine the artist’s mastery up close: the supple modelling of flesh, the subtle veining in Cupid’s wings, the naturalism in the scattered objects at his feet. For art historians, the painting’s arrival is a moment to revisit long-standing discussions about Caravaggio’s role in redefining eroticism, mythology, and the male nude in early 17th-century art.

The display promises to be one of London’s standout cultural moments of 2025–26, not least because Victorious Cupid has rarely left Berlin since its acquisition in the 19th century. By placing it in dialogue with a marble counterpart, the Wallace Collection invites visitors to weigh the persuasive power of pigment versus stone—an artistic rivalry that has spanned centuries.

Exhibition details: Caravaggio’s Victorious Cupid: Painting and Sculpture in Dialogue runs 26 November 2025 – 12 April 2026 at the Wallace Collection, London. Admission is free.