| Description
| Black Jasper-ware Plaque (Framed). Psyche wounded and bound by Cupid. Black background with raised white figures. Central figure - female with wings, in a kneeling position, hands behind back, tied to a tree (Psyche). On the left is Cupid, with bow and arrow. On the right a female figure with a deer (Diana the Huntress).
Frame of dark red wood with gold inner surround. hanging label attached to frame - Handwritten in black : Cupid.
Previously Numbered : Item No. 481 and 83 / 3 / 85
The tale of Cupid (Eros or Amor) and Psyche, known to us from a story told in Apuleius' "Metamorphoses" is a romantic myth.
A certain King had three daughters. The youngest, Psyche, was so beautiful that the people ceased to worship Venus (Aphrodite) and turned their adoration to the girl, who would, however, rather have received offers of marriage than divine honours. Venus herself, enraged by the princes's usurpation of her rites, however involuntary, resolved to punish her. She ordered her son Cupid to make Psyche fall in love with the ugliest creature he could find. When he saw her, however, he fell in love with her himself, and he could not obey his mother's command. He asked Apollo to give Psyche's father an oracle that she must get ready for marriage and stand, decked in her wedding gown, upon a lonely mountain peak, where an evil spirit would take her for his wife. In great sorrow the king obeyed. Psyche, however, was wafted on the gentle breeze of Zephyrus down from the mountain to a hidden valley, in which she saw a fairy palace with jewelled gates and golden floors. A friendly voice guided her round and advised her that she need fear nothing. When night came she went to bed, where she was joined by Cupid in human form. He told her that he was her husband, and that she would enjoy the happiest of lives if only she would refrain from seeking to find out who he was or trying to see him: if she did not obey, her baby would be denied the immortality it would otherwise inherit. |
