Psyche Carried to Olympus

Around 1518, Raphael's workshop painted the story of Cupid and Psyche on the vault of a garden loggia in Rome, in the villa of the banker Agostino Chigi that is now called the Farnesina. The tale comes from Apuleius, a Roman writer of the 2nd century. Nearly 30 years later, an engraving of about 1545 took one group from that vault and set it over open country, and this panel follows the print. Psyche has left the garlands and painted sky of the loggia behind. Three cupids carry her above mountains and ruined arches. The jar in her raised hand is the one Venus sent her to fetch from the underworld, meant to hold a little of Proserpina's beauty. The panel is attributed to Lambert van Noort, a Netherlandish painter who was working in Italy in the 1540s.