Cupid Presenting Psyche to the Gods ca. 1540–45 Andrea Schiavone (Andrea Meldola) Italian Subtle changes in tone- from pale wash to dark ink to white gouache- suggest the flicker of light across a low-relief sculpture or, given the oval shape, perhaps a cameo. In fact, the drawing relates to a ceiling panel in a room depicting the story of Psyche, the beautiful mortal adored by the god of love. Here, Cupid (shown as a winged boy) presents his beloved to the supreme deity, Jupiter, during an assembly of the gods. Cupid's father, Mercury, messenger to the gods, can be identified by his winged ca
Cupid Presenting Psyche to the Gods ca. 1540–45 Andrea Schiavone (Andrea Meldola) Italian Subtle changes in tone- from pale wash to dark ink to white gouache- suggest the flicker of light across a low-relief sculpture or, given the oval shape, perhaps a cameo. In fact, the drawing relates to a ceiling panel in a room depicting the story of Psyche, the beautiful mortal adored by the god of love. Here, Cupid (shown as a winged boy) presents his beloved to the supreme deity, Jupiter, during an assembly of the gods. Cupid's father, Mercury, messenger to the gods, can be identified by his winged cap and caduceus (or staff). The Dalmatian-born Schiavone, who spent much of his career in Venice, took the monumental composition from a painting by Raphael and the elongated style of the figures from Mannerist examples; the weblike representation of light and air, however, is entirely his own and relates to his inventive work as an etcher. The composition of this large pictorial drawing derives from and reverses the fresco by Raphael and his workshop of the same subject on the ceiling of the loggia at the Villa Farnesina (Rome), while the graceful, elongated physical types reveal the influence of Parmigianino and Francesco Salviati (in Venice in 1539). Schiavone's extraordinary technical virtuosity and originality are apparent in the masterful play of broad accents of light and shade over the surface of the friezelike group. According to Francis L. Richardson, the drawing served as a modello for one of the lost scenes of the story of Psyche painted on the ceiling of a room in the Castello di San Salvatore near Susegana (Conegliano), and which is known from Carlo Ridolfi's description of 1648. The oblong format with rounded ends would be consistent with that of a ceiling Cupid Presenting Psyche to the Gods 341242
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