Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
Canova’s Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss shows the moment in Apuleius’s Golden Ass when Cupid finds Psyche unconscious after opening the forbidden jar of Proserpina’s beauty, and wakes her with a kiss. Canova carved the group twice: the first version, bought by Joachim Murat in 1800 and now in the Louvre, and a second version for Prince Nikolai Yusupov, now in the Hermitage.
The composition is built as a spiral. Cupid kneels and lifts Psyche’s head with one hand while supporting her body with the other; Psyche’s arms rise to frame his head, and her wings and his interlock in a shape that turns as you walk around the group. Canova polished the marble to a soft, almost flesh-like sheen, and he left the surface of the base rough so that the figures seem to float above it. The butterfly on Psyche’s head is a pun on her name, which in Greek means both "soul" and "butterfly".
The work was an immediate sensation. It was the first modern sculpture to be treated as a collectible masterpiece, and it established Canova as the most celebrated sculptor in Europe. The Louvre acquired it in 1824, and it is displayed on a rotating base so that visitors can see it from every angle.
Antonio Canova (1757-1822) was the greatest sculptor of the Neoclassical age. Born near Treviso, he worked in Venice and then Rome, where he studied antique sculpture and developed a style that combined classical purity with a new tenderness. He carved tombs for popes, a colossal Napoleon, and the celebrated Paolina Borghese as Venus Victrix, and he was made a marquis by the Pope.
Canova’s group was made in the years when Napoleon’s looting of Italian collections had made Rome a centre of debate about the ownership of classical art. Its blend of eroticism and ideal form answered a European appetite for a modern sculpture that could stand beside the antique. Its purchase by the Louvre in 1824 was part of the museum’s effort to build a modern collection to match its old masters.
Denon Wing · Ground Floor · Italian Sculpture, Room 403
The Louvre is divided into three wings — Denon, Sully and Richelieu — reached from the hall beneath the glass pyramid.
Other pieces from the same artist, period or type of object.
