Cupid and Psyche
The Cleveland Museum of Art · Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund
Museum

Cupid and Psyche

1817
Jacques-Louis David (French, 1748–1825) visual detail
ArtistJacques-Louis David (French, 1748–1825)
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Market Intelligence

Observed sale facts, comparable evidence, artist index history and modeled research remain separate.

Public evidence
Last known price—0 matched observed sales
Observed median—
Observed sales0
Artist index—
No rights-cleared normalized observed sale is attached to this artwork. No synthetic price history is shown.
Artist index unavailableNo completed public artist-index build exists.Artist-level context is not an artwork valuation.

Comparable Sales

Same-artist public sales ranked by medium, creation year, dimensions and sale recency.

Evidence ranked
No public-rights comparable sales meet the current evidence criteria. RELICT does not fill the table with research-only or licensed-only facts.

Provenance

Public
1839

Giovanni Battista Comte de Sommariva [1760-1826], his sale February 18-23, 1839, sold to Dubois.

1839

(Dubois, Paris, France, February 18-23, 1839, lot 1)

Provenance event

James Alexandre Comte de Pourtalès [1776-1855], Paris. France.

1880

Pourtalès-Gorgier sale, Paris, France, March 27, 1865 (lot 242), ff 1,450 sold to Madame de Furtado,...

1880-?

Madame de Furtado [1821-1896], Paris, France

Provenance event

M. Eisenschitz ? (See distinguishing marks label)

Provenance event

Prince Murat by 1913. Princesse Murat. Murat sale, Palais Galliéra, Paris, France, March 2, 1961 (lo...

Source provenance text

Giovanni Battista Comte de Sommariva [1760-1826], his sale February 18-23, 1839, sold to Dubois. (Dubois, Paris, France, February 18-23, 1839, lot 1) James Alexandre Comte de Pourtalès [1776-1855], Paris. France. Pourtalès-Gorgier sale, Paris, France, March 27, 1865 (lot 242), ff 1,450 sold to Madame de Furtado, 1880. Madame de Furtado [1821-1896], Paris, France M. Eisenschitz ? (See distinguishing marks label) Prince Murat by 1913. Princesse Murat. Murat sale, Palais Galliéra, Paris, France, March 2, 1961 (lot 140), ff 245,000. (Rosenberg & Stiebel, New York, NY sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

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Exhibitions

Public
Source exhibition text

Year in Review - 1962. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 24-November 25, 1962). Neo-classicism: Style and Motif. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 23-October 31, 1964). Fifteenth Anniversary Exhibition. Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN (organizer) (November 4, 1965-January 2, 1966). The Age of Neoclassicism. Arts Council of Great Britain (organizer) (September 7-November 19, 1972). Jacques-Louis David: Empire to Exile. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA (February 1-April 24, 2005); Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA (organizer) (June 5-September 5, 2005). CMA @ Oberlin (first rotation). Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, OH (January 31-April 3, 2006). Masterpieces of European Painting from The Cleveland Museum of Art. Frick Collection, New York, NY (organizer) (November 8, 2006-January 28, 2007). Masterpieces of European Painting from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage, Beachwood, OH (March 29-July 8, 2007). Jacques-Louis David. Musée du Louvre, Paris, France (organizer) (October 15, 2025-January 26, 2026) https://www.louvre.fr/en/exhibitions-and-events/exhibitions/jacques-louis-david. City Hall, Ghent, Belgium (1817). (According to Dowd 1956). Au profit des hospices de Sainte-Gudule et des Ursulines. Musée Royal de Bruxelles, Bruxelles, Belgium (1817). (See Wildenstein and Wildenstein 1973). Au profit des Grecs. Galerie Lebrun, Paris, France (1826). (According to David, exh. cat., Orangerie des Tuileries, Paris, France (1948). Gros, ses amis, ses élèves. Petit Palais, Paris, France (1936). David: Exposition en l'honneur du deuxième centenaire de sa naissance. Orangerie des Tuileries, Paris, France (June-September, 1948).

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Sourced Overview Evidence

David used the story of Cupid and Psyche to explore the conflict between idealized love and physical reality. Cupid, lover of the beautiful mortal Psyche, visited her nightly on the condition that she not know his identity. Cupid was usually depicted as an ideal adolescent, but here David presents him as an ungainly teenager smirking at his sexual conquest. David took inspiration from a number of ancient texts, including an obscure, recently published Greek poem by Moschus that describes Cupid as a mean-spirited brat with flashing eyes and curly hair.

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Evidence state

0 observed sales · 0 comparable sales · 9 structured provenance events · 9 structured exhibitions.

Place Of OriginShort DescriptionProvenance TextExhibition HistoryCredit Line