L'Amour couronné par Psyché

Greuze had made his name on tender scenes of village life, but he always wanted to be ranked as a history painter, the top of the old academic ladder. His one serious attempt, a stern Roman subject shown in 1769, was so coldly received that he dropped classical themes for years. This canvas, from the later 1780s, is him trying again with the myth of Cupid and Psyche, Psyche setting a crown on the boy god of love while a figure of Modesty hovers behind her. He never finished it. You can see the ambition in the smooth classical bodies and the incense curling up from a tripod, and you can also see the struggle, since parts of the picture stay thin and unresolved.