Cupid and Psyche

Auguste Rodin

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

In this variation on the theme of lost love, Rodin depicts the moment that the god Cupid abandons the mortal Psyche at the command of the jealous goddess Venus. Outstretched across a block of unfinished marble, Psyche desperately clings to the god as he lowers his face toward her and ascends with beating wings. The projecting marble strut supporting Cupid’s arm binds him to the block and locks the lovers in an eternal parting embrace. In 1893 Cupid and Psyche and Orpheus and Eurydice became Rodin’s first carved works to enter an American collection.

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The fifty thousand objects in the Museum's comprehensive and historically important collection of European sculpture and decorative arts reflect the development of a number of art forms in Western European countries from the early fifteenth through the early twentieth century. The holdings include sculpture in many sizes and media, woodwork and furniture, ceramics and glass, metalwork and jewelry, horological and mathematical instruments, and tapestries and textiles. Ceramics made in Asia for export to European markets and sculpture and decorative arts produced in Latin America during this period are also included among these works.

Metropolitan Museum of Art