Cupid and Psyche (1817): Art, History and Details

Cupid and Psyche (1817) 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:

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.

Object facts

• Title: Cupid and Psyche
• Date: 1817
• Creator attribution: Jacques-Louis David (French, 1748–1825)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Framed: 221 x 282 x 10 cm (87 x 111 x 3 15/16 in.); Unframed: 184.2 x 241.6 cm (72 1/2 x 95 1/8 in.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1962.37

A detail from the museum

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.

Collection credit

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Dibdin, Thomas Frognall, William Bulmer, William Nicol, R. H. Evans, Robert Triphook, and John Major. A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany. 1821.
• Blanc, Charles and Adolphe Narcisse Thibaudeau. Le trésor de la curiosité, tiré des catalogues de vente de tableaux, dessins, estampes, livres, marbres, bronzes, ivoires, terres cuites, vitraux, médailles, armes, precelaines, meubles, émaux, laques et autres objets d'art. Paris: Ve J. Renouard, 1857.

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.