Cupid and Psyche
Medium
oil on canvas
Dimensions
{"framed":{"height":2.21,"width":2.82,"depth":0.1},"unframed":{"height":1.842,"width":2.416}}
Classification
Painting
Department
Modern European Painting and Sculpture
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund
Accession Number
1962.37
Tags
About this artwork
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 a...