Cupid and Psyche

In 1589 Ferdinando de' Medici, by then Grand Duke of Tuscany, gave up his cardinal's hat to marry Christine of Lorraine. Zucchi signed and dated this large canvas that same year, on the quiver lying at lower right, and it was probably painted for the wedding. The story comes from the Roman writer Apuleius. Psyche has been forbidden to see her husband's face, so at night she raises a lamp over the sleeping stranger, a knife ready in her other hand, and finds the god of love himself. A drop of hot oil from that lamp will wake him, and he will fly away. Zucchi fills the room with luxury, red velvet, pearls, a vase of flowers, and on the bedhead a carved reclining woman that echoes Michelangelo's statue of Night. Cardinal Scipione Borghese owned the picture by about 1633, and the museum now keeps it in storage.