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Lot Essay
THE LOVE OF CUPID AND PSYCHE
The divine marriage between Cupid and Psyche, orchestrated by the youthful god when his beloved was a young maiden, represented love in its highest form: the heavenly happiness that is achieved only when the soul (Psyche) and love (Cupid) are perfectly matched. The tender age of the lovers, for the partners are usually depicted either as children or in adolescence, emphasises the purity and innocence of their pairing. As the lovers each personified abstract concepts, desire and the soul, it is unsurprising that the earliest representations of their union in Greek visual culture ‘coincides with the rise of allegorical modes of thought and representation in the 4th and 3rd centuries B.C….when the pairing was employed by ancient thinkers from Plato to Plotinus to investigate the relationship between the passions and human subjectivity, or between mortality and the divine’ (V. Platt, 'Burning Butterflies: Seals, Symbols and the Soul in Antiquity' in L. Gilmour (ed.), Pagans and Christians - from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, London, 2007, p. 93). The charm of the couple and their potent allegorical meaning rendered them a hugely popular subject from the Hellenistic period onwards for artists working in a wide variety of media, including marble and bronze sculpture, glyptic art, free-standing terracottas, mosaics and painted frescoes (cf. N. Icard-Gianolio, ‘Psyche’ in LIMC, Zurich und München, 1994, nos. 121ff). Scenes of blissful intimacy, as with the present lot, are a powerful testament to the ancient belief in a perfect form of love.
APULEIUS AND THE MYTH OF CUPID AND PSYCHE
The tale of the union between Cupid and Psyche was most famously told by Apuleius (circa 124- circa 170 A.D.) in his Metamorphoses, otherwise known as The Golden Ass. The canonical version of their story describes how Psyche incurred the wrath of the goddess Venus with her conspicuous beauty, which inspired such passion amongst her admirers that they neglected the proper worship of the deity in favour of idolising the mortal girl. Venus commanded her son, Cupid, to punish the young girl by striking her with one of his magic arrows and causing her to fall in love with a hideous being. However, the young god was himself so enamoured by Psyche that he resisted his mother’s orders, instead having his beloved spirited away by Zephyr, the West Wind, and eventually placed in a beautiful palace. She was kept here, away from her parents and sisters, and visited nightly by her divine lover, though she did not know who he was, having been commanded not to look upon his face (for such hubris often led to the destruction of mortals). Psyche’s sisters were overwhelmed with jealousy at her blessed existence, and through spite induced her to try and uncover the identity of the god while he slept. Psyche waited until night, then lit a lamp and saw the most beautiful young man lying beside her. Unfortunately, a drop of hot oil from the lamp fell onto the god’s shoulder and, realising her betrayal, the wounded Cupid abandoned his lover. Psyche fell into despair. Having wrought her revenge upon her duplicitous siblings, she wandered the earth in search of her lost love. Psyche finally realised that winning Venus’ forgiveness was her only chance of success, and so she offered herself in service to the goddess. Venus, a notoriously spiteful and jealous deity, cruelly tortured the girl through a series of seemingly impossible tasks. Psyche’s last ordeal, a visit to the Underworld to retrieve a dose of beauty from Persephone, ended with Cupid retrieving his beloved and bringing her to Jupiter, to beseech the Father of the Gods to aid him in his union. Jupiter, in return for Cupid’s assistance with future romantic conquests, agreed, and gifted Psyche ambrosia, the drink of immortality. A wedding banquet in the heavens with all of the gods in attendance followed, and the love between Cupid and Psyche was finally formalised into an eternal divine marriage.
THE ARTISTIC TRADITION
The present lot finds the couple in an affectionate embrace; groups of this subject have been suggested as deriving from a second-century B.C. Hellenistic original, though only Roman compositions survive (cf. W. Helbig, Führer durch die öffentlichen Sammlungen klassicher Altertümer in Rom, 1963-72, II, pp. 238-9). The type is best known from an example discovered in Rome on the Aventine Hill in 1750, and now in the Capitoline Museums (inv. MC0408). This piece was lauded as encapsulating ‘the first burst of youthful loveliness’ (J. Bell, Observations on Italy, London, 1825, p. 333), a sentiment wholly applicable to the present lot; indeed, I. Love held the above piece to be ‘one of the most engaging inventions of ancient art’ (Opiuchus Collection, Geneva, 1989, p. 95). The plethora of reproductions of the Capitoline Cupid and Psyche in such workshops as Wedgewood, Zoffoli and Sèvres is testament to the tremendous popularity of the subject amongst 18th and 19th century antiquaries, who appreciated both the physical beauty of the work as well as its powerful symbolism. Other groups of the type are found in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence (inv. no. 339) and the museum at Ostia (inv. no. 180; for more, cf. S. Reinach, Repertoire de la Statuaire Grecque et Romaine, Paris, 1906-1909, vol. I, p. 360-361 and vol III.2, p. 459-460). A further group from the Hope collection (Reinach, p. 361), thought to be lost, was rediscovered in 2013 and sold in Christie’s New York saleroom in December of that year. That Cupid is winged and Psyche is not is a notable difference between the present lot and the other known examples: usually both figures are winged, or both without (once immortal, Psyche is represented with small wings, and is associated with the butterfly). Here, Cupid’s divine attribute and Psyche’s lack thereof emphasises that the union is between deity and mortal, and perhaps places their embrace at a time before Psyche was welcomed into the family of the gods.
THE OPIUCHUS COLLECTION
The present lot was part of the renowned Opiuchus Collection for over 20 years. This collection, formed by the late Greek shipping magnate Constantine Karpidas, is encyclopaedic in scope, spanning over 5,000 years of human history, from the art of the Cyclades to contemporary sculpture. Alexander Iolas (1907-1987), who is believed to have owned the sculpture prior to the Opiuchus Collection, having acquired it at the 1961 Joseph Sayag auction, was a close friend and advisor of the Karpidases. Iolas was an important gallerist and collector and social acquaintance of Pablo Picasso, René Magritte, Max Ernst, Yves Klein and Andy Warhol, amongst innumerable other titans of 20th century art. This prestigious provenance is shared with the iconic Three Graces currently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY (acc. no. 2010.260), another Roman marble sculpture group which found a place first with Alexander Iolas, and then the Opiuchus collection.
The divine marriage between Cupid and Psyche, orchestrated by the youthful god when his beloved was a young maiden, represented love in its highest form: the heavenly happiness that is achieved only when the soul (Psyche) and love (Cupid) are perfectly matched. The tender age of the lovers, for the partners are usually depicted either as children or in adolescence, emphasises the purity and innocence of their pairing. As the lovers each personified abstract concepts, desire and the soul, it is unsurprising that the earliest representations of their union in Greek visual culture ‘coincides with the rise of allegorical modes of thought and representation in the 4th and 3rd centuries B.C….when the pairing was employed by ancient thinkers from Plato to Plotinus to investigate the relationship between the passions and human subjectivity, or between mortality and the divine’ (V. Platt, 'Burning Butterflies: Seals, Symbols and the Soul in Antiquity' in L. Gilmour (ed.), Pagans and Christians - from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, London, 2007, p. 93). The charm of the couple and their potent allegorical meaning rendered them a hugely popular subject from the Hellenistic period onwards for artists working in a wide variety of media, including marble and bronze sculpture, glyptic art, free-standing terracottas, mosaics and painted frescoes (cf. N. Icard-Gianolio, ‘Psyche’ in LIMC, Zurich und München, 1994, nos. 121ff). Scenes of blissful intimacy, as with the present lot, are a powerful testament to the ancient belief in a perfect form of love.
APULEIUS AND THE MYTH OF CUPID AND PSYCHE
The tale of the union between Cupid and Psyche was most famously told by Apuleius (circa 124- circa 170 A.D.) in his Metamorphoses, otherwise known as The Golden Ass. The canonical version of their story describes how Psyche incurred the wrath of the goddess Venus with her conspicuous beauty, which inspired such passion amongst her admirers that they neglected the proper worship of the deity in favour of idolising the mortal girl. Venus commanded her son, Cupid, to punish the young girl by striking her with one of his magic arrows and causing her to fall in love with a hideous being. However, the young god was himself so enamoured by Psyche that he resisted his mother’s orders, instead having his beloved spirited away by Zephyr, the West Wind, and eventually placed in a beautiful palace. She was kept here, away from her parents and sisters, and visited nightly by her divine lover, though she did not know who he was, having been commanded not to look upon his face (for such hubris often led to the destruction of mortals). Psyche’s sisters were overwhelmed with jealousy at her blessed existence, and through spite induced her to try and uncover the identity of the god while he slept. Psyche waited until night, then lit a lamp and saw the most beautiful young man lying beside her. Unfortunately, a drop of hot oil from the lamp fell onto the god’s shoulder and, realising her betrayal, the wounded Cupid abandoned his lover. Psyche fell into despair. Having wrought her revenge upon her duplicitous siblings, she wandered the earth in search of her lost love. Psyche finally realised that winning Venus’ forgiveness was her only chance of success, and so she offered herself in service to the goddess. Venus, a notoriously spiteful and jealous deity, cruelly tortured the girl through a series of seemingly impossible tasks. Psyche’s last ordeal, a visit to the Underworld to retrieve a dose of beauty from Persephone, ended with Cupid retrieving his beloved and bringing her to Jupiter, to beseech the Father of the Gods to aid him in his union. Jupiter, in return for Cupid’s assistance with future romantic conquests, agreed, and gifted Psyche ambrosia, the drink of immortality. A wedding banquet in the heavens with all of the gods in attendance followed, and the love between Cupid and Psyche was finally formalised into an eternal divine marriage.
THE ARTISTIC TRADITION
The present lot finds the couple in an affectionate embrace; groups of this subject have been suggested as deriving from a second-century B.C. Hellenistic original, though only Roman compositions survive (cf. W. Helbig, Führer durch die öffentlichen Sammlungen klassicher Altertümer in Rom, 1963-72, II, pp. 238-9). The type is best known from an example discovered in Rome on the Aventine Hill in 1750, and now in the Capitoline Museums (inv. MC0408). This piece was lauded as encapsulating ‘the first burst of youthful loveliness’ (J. Bell, Observations on Italy, London, 1825, p. 333), a sentiment wholly applicable to the present lot; indeed, I. Love held the above piece to be ‘one of the most engaging inventions of ancient art’ (Opiuchus Collection, Geneva, 1989, p. 95). The plethora of reproductions of the Capitoline Cupid and Psyche in such workshops as Wedgewood, Zoffoli and Sèvres is testament to the tremendous popularity of the subject amongst 18th and 19th century antiquaries, who appreciated both the physical beauty of the work as well as its powerful symbolism. Other groups of the type are found in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence (inv. no. 339) and the museum at Ostia (inv. no. 180; for more, cf. S. Reinach, Repertoire de la Statuaire Grecque et Romaine, Paris, 1906-1909, vol. I, p. 360-361 and vol III.2, p. 459-460). A further group from the Hope collection (Reinach, p. 361), thought to be lost, was rediscovered in 2013 and sold in Christie’s New York saleroom in December of that year. That Cupid is winged and Psyche is not is a notable difference between the present lot and the other known examples: usually both figures are winged, or both without (once immortal, Psyche is represented with small wings, and is associated with the butterfly). Here, Cupid’s divine attribute and Psyche’s lack thereof emphasises that the union is between deity and mortal, and perhaps places their embrace at a time before Psyche was welcomed into the family of the gods.
THE OPIUCHUS COLLECTION
The present lot was part of the renowned Opiuchus Collection for over 20 years. This collection, formed by the late Greek shipping magnate Constantine Karpidas, is encyclopaedic in scope, spanning over 5,000 years of human history, from the art of the Cyclades to contemporary sculpture. Alexander Iolas (1907-1987), who is believed to have owned the sculpture prior to the Opiuchus Collection, having acquired it at the 1961 Joseph Sayag auction, was a close friend and advisor of the Karpidases. Iolas was an important gallerist and collector and social acquaintance of Pablo Picasso, René Magritte, Max Ernst, Yves Klein and Andy Warhol, amongst innumerable other titans of 20th century art. This prestigious provenance is shared with the iconic Three Graces currently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY (acc. no. 2010.260), another Roman marble sculpture group which found a place first with Alexander Iolas, and then the Opiuchus collection.