This lot is after the series L'Histoire de Psyché executed in 1819 by the Manufacture Dufour after designs by Louis Lafitte and Merry-Joseph Blondel. This series, comprising twelve panels, is directly inspired by the romantic novel of La Fontaine, Les Amours de Psyché et Cupidon, and was exhibited at the 1819 Exposition des Produits de l'industrie where it was awarded a silver medal (illustrated in Un Age d'or des arts décoratifs 1814-1848, Paris, 1991, pp. 122-123).

The story of Cupid and Psyche, originally popularised in the 2nd century B.C. by Apuleius, A priest of Isis, in The Golden Ass, was celebrated in ancient mythology as an allegory of the union of the human soul with divine love, a fitting subject in turn for Renaissance humanists. Psyche's beauty aroused Venus's envy, who sent Cupid to cause her to fall in love with a monster. Cupid, however, fell in love with her himself, and brought her to his palace, where he only allowed her to visit him in darkness. Psyche, urged on by her jealous sisters, tried to glimpse her mysterious lover with an oil lamp, mistakenly wakening Cupid, who vanished along with his palace. After performing various arduous tasks for Venus, Psyche was eventually reunited with Cupid, and they were married on Mount Olympus.