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Lot Essay
Sculpted in two layers, opaque white on translucent light brown, this cameo depicts the Punishment of Psyche. She is depicted seated at the center on a groundline with her hands tied behind her back, her left leg extended, her right folded acutely beneath her. She is nude but for a mantle draped over her legs. Framed by her upraised butterfly wings, her head is turned back with her gaze directed at a draped goddess, likely Venus, sitting on a rocky outcrop. A nude Cupid stands on the outcrop between them, holding a taenia in his outstretched hand; a second nude Cupid is at the right, walking away, shouldering a beribboned thyrsus. Behind Psyche is a tropaion, a military trophy consisting of armor and a shield.
The romance between Cupid and Psyche is known chiefly from The Golden Ass, written by Apuleius in the second century A.D. That the story had older origins in the Greek world is confirmed by the existence of terracotta figures of the embracing couple from the Hellenistic period. When Psyche’s beauty was compared to that of Venus, the enraged goddess sent her son Cupid to trick her into falling in love with a monster, but instead it was Cupid who fell in love with Psyche. After many travails, Psyche was granted immortality, and the couple was accepted on Mount Olympus (see p. 125 in C. Kondoleon, et al., Aphrodite and the Gods of Love).
Cupid and Psyche was popular subject in Roman art, either as single figures, in tandem, or, as on this gem, Psyche with multiple Cupids. Gems featuring the subject, both on intaglios and cameos, may have been commissioned as lover’s gifts (see V. Platt, “Burning Butterflies: Seals, Symbols and the Soul in Antiquity,” in L. Gilmour, ed., Pagans and Christians: From Antiquity to the Middle Ages). The scene on the cameo presented here is complex. A cameo in the Hermitage, attributed by some to the engraver Sostratos, depicts Psyche in a similar pose, in reverse, with an Cupid in the process of binding her arms, while a second Cupid approaches from the left holding a torch. The action is observed by Bacchus, who sits to the right holding a thyrsus (see O. Nevrov, Antique Cameos in the Hermitage Collection, pl. 22).
This rediscovered cameo was previously in the collection of the Scottish antiquary James Byres, who is meant to have acquired gems from many of the grand cabinets in Italy, such as the Albani, Strozzi, Borghese and Medici-Ricardi (see P. Golyzniak, Engraved Gems & Propaganda in the Roman Republic and Under Augustus). Byres sold the cameo in 1787 to Captain Constantine John Phipps, 2nd Baron Mulgrave, for the astonishing sum of £100. This transaction is documented by a drawing in the British Museum with the notation “cameo white sard: sold by Mr. Byres to Lord Mulgrave for £100- 1787". Another notable work of art once owned by Byres is the Portland Vase, a Roman cameo glass vase now in the British Museum (inv. no. 1945,0927.1), which he acquired from the Barberini Collection and later sold to Sir William Hamilton, who then sold it to Margaret Cavendish Harley, Duchess of Portland.
The romance between Cupid and Psyche is known chiefly from The Golden Ass, written by Apuleius in the second century A.D. That the story had older origins in the Greek world is confirmed by the existence of terracotta figures of the embracing couple from the Hellenistic period. When Psyche’s beauty was compared to that of Venus, the enraged goddess sent her son Cupid to trick her into falling in love with a monster, but instead it was Cupid who fell in love with Psyche. After many travails, Psyche was granted immortality, and the couple was accepted on Mount Olympus (see p. 125 in C. Kondoleon, et al., Aphrodite and the Gods of Love).
Cupid and Psyche was popular subject in Roman art, either as single figures, in tandem, or, as on this gem, Psyche with multiple Cupids. Gems featuring the subject, both on intaglios and cameos, may have been commissioned as lover’s gifts (see V. Platt, “Burning Butterflies: Seals, Symbols and the Soul in Antiquity,” in L. Gilmour, ed., Pagans and Christians: From Antiquity to the Middle Ages). The scene on the cameo presented here is complex. A cameo in the Hermitage, attributed by some to the engraver Sostratos, depicts Psyche in a similar pose, in reverse, with an Cupid in the process of binding her arms, while a second Cupid approaches from the left holding a torch. The action is observed by Bacchus, who sits to the right holding a thyrsus (see O. Nevrov, Antique Cameos in the Hermitage Collection, pl. 22).
This rediscovered cameo was previously in the collection of the Scottish antiquary James Byres, who is meant to have acquired gems from many of the grand cabinets in Italy, such as the Albani, Strozzi, Borghese and Medici-Ricardi (see P. Golyzniak, Engraved Gems & Propaganda in the Roman Republic and Under Augustus). Byres sold the cameo in 1787 to Captain Constantine John Phipps, 2nd Baron Mulgrave, for the astonishing sum of £100. This transaction is documented by a drawing in the British Museum with the notation “cameo white sard: sold by Mr. Byres to Lord Mulgrave for £100- 1787". Another notable work of art once owned by Byres is the Portland Vase, a Roman cameo glass vase now in the British Museum (inv. no. 1945,0927.1), which he acquired from the Barberini Collection and later sold to Sir William Hamilton, who then sold it to Margaret Cavendish Harley, Duchess of Portland.