Cupid and Psyche

Cleveland Museum of Art

Cupid and Psyche

Jacques-Louis DavidLinkedCulture matchlcp-14631ff483cc

Date
1817
Medium
oil on canvas
Culture
France, 19th century
Department
Modern European Painting and Sculpture
Institution
Cleveland Museum of Art
Object ID
138464

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

David used the story of Cupid and Psyche to explore the conflict between idealized love and physical reality. Cupid, lover of the beautiful mortal Psyche, visited her nightly on the condition that she not know his identity. Cupid was usually depicted as an ideal adolescent, but here David presents him as an ungainly teenager smirking at his sexual conquest. David took inspiration from a number of ancient texts, including an obscure, recently published Greek poem by Moschus that describes Cupid as a mean-spirited brat with flashing eyes and curly hair. Jacques-Louis David included two butterflies in this painting: one above the slumbering Psyche and the other on the base of the couple's bed frame.

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Provenance & credit

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Credit line
Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund
Provenance
1839: Giovanni Battista Comte de Sommariva [1760-1826], his sale February 18-23, 1839, sold to Dubois. | 1839: (Dubois, Paris, France, February 18-23, 1839, lot 1) | James Alexandre Comte de Pourtalès [1776-1855], Paris. France. | 1880: Pourtalès-Gorgier sale, Paris, France, March 27, 1865 (lot 242), ff 1,450 sold to Madame de Furtado, 1880. | 1880-?: Madame de Furtado [1821-1896], Paris, France | M. Eisenschitz ? (See distinguishing marks label) | Prince Murat by 1913. Princesse Murat. Murat sale, Palais Galliéra, Paris, France, March 2, 1961 (lot 140), ff 245,000. | 1962: (Rosenberg & Stiebel, New York, NY sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) | 1962: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

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