Cupid and Psyche

The sketches on this sheet are among several proposals for the sculpture group Cupid and Psyche, for which Thorvaldsen received a commission 1803-04, and which he presumably modelled in 1807. Apuleius’s classical portrayal of the couple’s love story was a subject to which artists, scholars and collectors frequently turned, and the same applied to the sculpture Cupid and Psyche in the Musei Capitolini. The sources tell us that Thorvaldsen made sketches based on this work on 28 January 1800. The four sketches in this drawing show how eager Thorvaldsen was to vary the way in which the group is arranged.