Respect

When the National Gallery bought this painting's three companions from Lord Darnley in 1890, this one was held back. Spending public money on it was thought improper, because of what it seems to show. Cupid tugs a soldier by his sword hilt toward a naked woman asleep on a bed, while a bearded companion pulls him the other way by the arm. In the end Darnley gave the picture to the Gallery for nothing, writing that he was only too glad to have it off his hands. Its title was attached in 1727, and it may mean the man holds back out of respect because she is asleep. In the arch behind him, a painted mosaic has been read as the Continence of Scipio, the Roman general who returned a captive woman to her family untouched, though that reading is uncertain.