Ships across Canada Free shipping on prints over $50 CAD

Jacques-Louis David · 1817

Cupid and Psyche

Posters from $15.00 CAD · Canvas from $39.00 CAD

Ships across Canada

A grinning, earthy Cupid slipping from the bed at dawn while Psyche sleeps beside him, a butterfly above her and hills beyond the window — painted in Brussels exile. Cleveland Museum of Art.

Up to 21.1 × 16 in · landscape

Size

Larger sizes are unavailable for this painting because the source scan's resolution wouldn't print at gallery quality.

Format & finish

Archival cotton canvas stretched over a wooden frame. Ready to hang as-is. No external frame.

Scale next to a 5'10" person

21.1″16″

+ tax at checkout

Materials & quality

›Canvas & inks

Giclée-printed on archival cotton canvas with fade-resistant pigment inks, hand-stretched over wooden bars. Gallery-wrapped — ready to hang with no extra frame needed.

›Floater frame

Hand-finished solid wood floater frame in five finishes. The canvas sits inside with a clean shadow gap — the way galleries hang contemporary canvas.

›Posters

Premium archival paper — 200 gsm soft matte or 230 gsm vibrant glossy. Ships flat or rolled, ready for your own frame.

›Faithful to the source

Printed from the highest-resolution museum and archive scans available. Each painting's maximum size is capped at what its source scan can support at gallery quality.

The story of Cupid and Psyche

David completed the painting in 1817 in Brussels, where he had gone into exile after Napoleon's fall; it was commissioned by the collector Gian Battista Sommariva. It shows Cupid leaving the sleeping Psyche after a night together, his knowing, unidealised look in contrast with her innocent sleep. A butterfly above Psyche stands for the soul. Early viewers were shocked by its realism and took it as a sign of David's decline. The painting is in the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Adapted from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Jacques-Louis David

Jacques-Louis David was a French painter in the Neoclassical style, considered to be the preeminent painter of the era. In the 1780s, his cerebral brand of history painting marked a change in taste away from Rococo frivolity toward classical austerity, severity, and heightened feeling, which harmonized with the moral climate of the final years of the Ancien Régime.

All Jacques-Louis David prints →

Biography adapted from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Shopping from the US? Visit our US store → chromoraart.com