The Abduction of Psyche
Pierre-Paul Prud'hon (1758-1823) · c. 1808
A sleeping girl is carried through the night sky by winged spirits. Psyche lies back with one arm raised over her head, her body limp and pale against a billowing gold drapery, while a dark-winged Zephyr supports her from behind and a small Cupid strains beneath her legs. Below them a dark landscape drops away under a cloudy sky. The flesh is painted with a soft, pearly modelling, the outlines blurred so that the bodies seem to melt into the air. The subject is from the tale of Cupid and Psyche in Apuleius: the west wind carries the girl to the palace of her unknown lover.
Prud'hon exhibited the picture at the Salon of 1808, the same year as his Justice and Divine Vengeance in this room, and again in 1814. Where David's pupils drew hard contours, Prud'hon worked in the manner of Correggio and Leonardo, with smoky transitions and a cool, moonlit palette, and Stendhal and the Romantics admired him for it. The painting was bequeathed to the Louvre in 1888, the same year as Guérin's Aurora and Cephalus nearby, and the two make a pair of floating, nocturnal loves.
Did You Know? Stendhal and the Romantics praised Prud'hon for exactly the smoky, Correggio-like softness that David's pupils avoided.
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