ARARPI0183429
Painting Love and Psyche Oil on Canvas Italy XVIII Century
Love and Psyche
Oil painting on canvas. Northern Italian school of the 17th century. The scene refers, with some variations but very close in size, to a part of the large fresco entitled "Banchetto degli dei" in the Chamber of Cupid (or Chamber of Cupid and Psyche) of Palazzo Té in Mantua, a large representation of over nine meters made by Giulio Romano with his workshop in the 16th century. The proposed scene (which in Mantua is located to the right of the great banquet) sees Cupid and Psyche lying on a triclinium, while a small winged figure crowns them with laurel and two nymphs wash Cupid's hand; in the background on the right a group of satyrs is sacrificing a goat to the altar of a deity, while in the centre, in the distance, a city is burning. The banquet of the gods is the final moment of the myth of the two lovers who, after many trials and vicissitudes, obtain Venus'permission to get married. The work, restored and relined, is presented in an antique frame.