The story of Cupid and Psyche: Psyche's father consults the oracle of Apollo (a); Psyche sacrificed by her parents (b); Zephyr carries Psyche down from the mountain (c); Psyche discovering Cupid (d); Psyche in the underworld, obtaining the box from Proserpina (e) and Psyche honored by the people (f)

The authorship of this impressive and elaborate group of six mythological scenes is unknown. The pictures are prominent examples of Flemish 18th Century art. They correspond to the large wall decorations, executed by local artists for the townhouses of the nobility, the upper classes, the pensioners and merchants of the prosperious industrial and commercial cities of Ghent and Antwerp. An attribution to Balthasar Beschey (Antwerp 1708-1776) has been suggested by Jan de Maere. Stylistically the paintings show also strong similarities with the oeuvre of Petrus Johannes van Reysschoot (Ghent 1702-1772). Like Beschey, Van Reysschoot transfered Flemish baroque art into the taste of the 18th Century, and probably more than Beschey, he developed a light painterly touch in a rococo idiom, as can be found in the present series of paintings.