Cupid and Psyche (1813): Art, History and Details

Cupid and Psyche (1813) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Jacques-Louis David (French, 1748–1825).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This drawing belongs to a group of preparatory studies for Jacques-Louis David's painting Cupid and Psyche, also in the Cleveland Museum of Art's collection. Here, David integrated looser charcoal sketches into a finished work in which his composition was fully established. Only minor details, such as Cupid's facial expression, were ultimately changed. In layers of diluted gray wash and outlines of black ink, David evoked the precise appearance of his final canvas using monochromatic media.

Object facts

• Title: Cupid and Psyche
• Date: 1813
• Creator attribution: Jacques-Louis David (French, 1748–1825)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: gray wash and pen and black ink with white paint and traces of black chalk
• Dimensions: Sheet: 16.7 x 22.4 cm (6 9/16 x 8 13/16 in.)
• Collection: DR - French
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 2002.91

A detail from the museum

Scholars believe that this drawing was given by Jacques-Louis David to his pupil, the Comte de Forbin, to thank him for his continual devotion.

Collection credit

Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• David, Jacques Louis Jules. Le peintre Louis David, 1748-1825: souvenirs & documents inédits. Paris: Victor Havard, 1880
• Hautecoeur, Louis. Louis David. Paris: Table Ronde, 1954.
• The Age of Neo-Classicism. Exh. Cat. London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1972.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.