- Artist
- Edward Burne-Jones (British, 1833–1898)
- Medium
- Watercolor, gouache and pastel on moderately thick, moderately textured, wove paper mounted on linen
- Size
- Sheet: 27 5/8 x 19 inches (70.2 x 48.3 cm)
- Rights
- CC0 — no rights reserved
Edward Burne-Jones explored the story of Psyche and Cupid seventy times over the course of thirty years, starting from 1864, when his friend and collaborator William Morris, a founding leader of the Arts and Crafts Movement, began work on a collection of verses titled Earthly Paradise. This drawing was designed to illustrate Morris’s first poem in the second volume, “The Story of Cupid and Psyche.”
Morris recounts the lengthy love story between Cupid, the winged son of Venus, and Psyche, a mortal woman. Jealous of her beauty, Venus dispatched Cupid to make Psyche fall in love with someone ugly, but instead Cupid fell in love with her himself. Here, Burne-Jones represents the moment Cupid first encounters the sleeping Psyche and looks upon a vulnerable woman with an unrequited gaze, as described in Morris’s poem: “long he stood above her hidden eyes / With red lips parted in god’s surprise.”
Text: Yale Center for British Art.
