The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of March 26, 2024

Cupid and Psyche

Cupid and Psyche

1813
Location: not on view

Did You Know?

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.

Description

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.
  • after 1813-after 1841
    Given by the artist to Nicholas Phillippe Auguste, Compte de Forbin [1777-1841], Paris
    ?-?
    Private collection, Paris
    1973
    (sale, Hotel Drouot, November 7, 1973, no. 107)
    1975-?
    (Galerie Arnoldi-Livie, Munich)
    by 1975
    (Heim Gallery, London)
    by 1979-?
    (Artemis Group (David Carritt), London)
    after 1979-?
    (Eugene V. Thaw, New York)
    ?-?
    Ed Hill, El Paso, Texas
    ?-?
    Elizabeth Eddy, Ohio
    around 1980-?
    (Richard L. Feigen & Co., New York)
    ?-?
    Paul Weiss, New York
    by 1994-2003
    (Richard L. Feigen & Co., New York, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH)
    2002-
    Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • David, Jacques Louis Jules. Le peintre Louis David, 1748-1825: souvenirs & documents inédits. Paris: Victor Havard, 1880 Mentioned: p. 663
    Hautecoeur, Louis. Louis David. Paris: Table Ronde, 1954. Mentioned: p. 268
    The Age of Neo-Classicism. Exh. Cat. London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1972. Mentioned: p. 48
    Estampes anciennes, beaux livres illustres, dessins anciens. Paris: Hotel Drouot, 1973. Mentioned and reproduced: no. 107
    Exhibition of French Drawings: Neo-Classicism. Exh. Cat. London: Heim Gallery, 1975. Mentioned and reproduced: no. 26
    The Classical Ideal: Athens to Picasso. Exh. Cat. London: David Carritt Limited, 1979. Mentioned: p. 35, no. 25; Reproduced: p. 34
    Schnapper, Antoine. David, témoin de son temps. Fribourg, Office du livre, 1980. Mentioned: p. 297
    Coekelberghs, Denis and Pierre Loze. Autour du neo-classicisme en belgique, 1770-1830. Exh. Cat. Brussels: Musée communal des Beaux-Arts, 1985. Mentioned: p. 182
    Johnson, Dorothy. "Desire Demythologized: David's L'Amour Quittant Psyché." Art History 9, no. 4 (December 1986): 450-70. Mentioned: p. 467, n. 32
    Jacques-Louis David, 1748-1825. Exh. Cat. Paris: Musée du Louvre, 1989. Mentioned: pp. 506, 518
    Sérullaz, Arlette. Inventaire général des dessins, école française, dessins de Jacques-Louis David. Paris: Éditions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, 1991. Mentioned: p. 311
    Neo-Classicism and Romanticism in French Painting, 1774-1826. Exh. Cat. New York: Richard L. Feigen & Co., 1994. Mentioned: pp. 26-28, no. 8; Reproduced: p. 27
    Lang, Paul. Ein Blick auf Amor und Psyche um 1800. Exh. Cat. Zürich: Kunsthaus Zürich, 1994. Mentioned: pp. 125-31, no. 28; Reproduced: p. 127
    Vidal, Mary. "'With a Pretty Whisper': Deception and Transformation in David's Cupid and Psyche and Apuleius's Metamorphoses." Art History 22, no. 2 (June 1999): 214-43. Mentioned: p. 221; Reproduced: p. 223, fig. 33
    d'Argencourt, Louise. European Paintings of the 19th-Century. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1999. Mentioned: vol. 1, p. 201, n. 3
    Bordes, Philippe. Jacques-Louis David: Empire to Exile. Exh. Cat. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2005. Mentioned: pp. 220-24, no. 30; Reproduced: p. 221
    Lampe, Issa. "Painting History Ex Patria: Empire, Exile, and Memory in the Late Narrative Paintings of Jacques-Louis David (1817-1824)." Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 2006. Mentioned: p. vii; Reproduced: p. 266, fig. 5
    Allard, Sébastian and Marie-Claude Chaudonneret. Le suicide de Gros: les peintres de l'empire et la génération romantique. Paris: Gourcuff Gradenigo, 2010. Mentioned: p. 27; Reproduced: p. 64
    Johnson, Dorothy. David to Delacroix: The Rise of Romantic Mythology. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011. Mentioned: p. 89; Reproduced: p. 90
    Prat, Louis-Antoine. Le dessin français au XIXe siècle. Paris: Louvre Editions, 2012. Mentioned and reproduced: p. 63, fig. 118
    David, Jacques Louis, and Perrin Stein. Jacques Louis David: Radical Draftsman. 2022, 244. Mentioned and reproduced, pp. 244-245, no. 77.
  • Jacques Louis David: Radical Draftsman. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (organizer) (February 14-May 15, 2022) https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2022/jacques-louis-david-radical-draftsman.
    Jacques-Louis David: Empire to Exile. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA (February 1-April 24, 2005).
    Ein Blick auf Amor und Psyche um 1800. Musée de Carouge (March 17 - May 1, 1994); Kunsthaus Zürich (May 20 - July 17, 1994).
    Neo-Classicism and Romanticism in French Painting, 1774-1826). Richard L. Feigen & Co., New York (1994).
    The Classical Ideal: Athens to Picasso. David Carritt Limited, London (November 15 - December 14, 1979).
    Exhibition of French Drawings: Neo-Classicism. Heim Gallery, London (February 20 - March 27, 1975).
  • {{cite web|title=Cupid and Psyche|url=false|author=Jacques-Louis David|year=1813|access-date=26 March 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2002.91