Antoine Coypel (Paris 1661-1722)

Psyche and Cupid

Details

Antoine Coypel (Paris 1661-1722)
Psyche and Cupid
black, white and red chalk on buff paper
10 3/8 x 14 1/8 in. (26.3 x 35.7 cm.)

Provenance

Alan L. Corey; Sotheby's, New York, 5 December 1974, lot 588.

Literature

N. Garnier, Antoine Coypel, Paris, 1989, no. 265b, fig. 128 (as location unknown).

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Lot Essay

A study for Coypel's painting of the same subject first exhibited at the Salon of 1699 and now in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg (fig. 1; Garnier, op. cit., no. 68, fig. 127). The subject comes from Apuleius' Metamorphoses. The painting was engraved by Jean Audan. There is another related drawing in the Louvre (Garnier, op. cit., no. 265, fig. 129) which is sketchier but indicates the background composition of trees and clouds, unlike the present drawing which concentrates on the pose of Psyche, the figure of Cupid summarily indicated in white chalk.

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