Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss

Antonio Canova's sculpture Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss, first commissioned in 1787 by Colonel John Campbell, is a masterpiece of Neoclassical sculpture, but shows the mythological lovers at a moment of great emotion, characteristic of the emerging movement of Romanticism. It represents the god Cupid in the height of love and tenderness, immediately after awakening the lifeless Psyche with a kiss. The story of Cupid and Psyche is taken from Lucius Apuleius' Latin novel The Golden Ass, and was popular in art.
Joachim Murat acquired the first or prime version (pictured) in 1800. After his death the statue entered the Louvre Museum in Paris, France in 1824; Prince Yusupov, a Russian nobleman acquired the second version of the piece from Canova in Rome in 1796, and it later entered the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. The plaster cast for this later version is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. For the development of the composition, a modello was used by Canova from which other versions were later made, with small differences between each version. A modello for Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss is shown in Hugh Douglas Hamilton's 1788-89 pastel of Antonio Canova and Henry Tresham with a Model for Cupid and Psyche.