Cupid & Psyche by Burne-Jones HS Puzzles IMG_6818
My latest hand cut jigsaw, made by Howard Smeeton of HS Puzzles. The image is from my favourite painter Edward Burne-Jones.
Cupid discovering Psyche was a favourite subject of Burne-Jones who completed at least 5 paintings of the subject. This one is dated 1867 and is at Manchester Art Gallery. You can see a number of the other versions on this website:
publications.ngv.vic.gov.au/artjournal/edward-burne-jones...
"In 1865 Burne-Jones had begun the preparatory drawings for William Morris’s illustrated epic poem The Earthly Paradise. A section of Morris’s twenty-four episodic tales was the story of Cupid and Psyche, based on Lucius Apuleius’s The Golden Ass from the second century AD. The first edition of The Earthly Paradise greatly compromised Morris’s original concept. Printed using a standard font, it was released without the intended forty-four wood engravings which Burne-Jones had designed to accompany it.7 This overly ambitious project was abandoned in 1868, partly because of the impossibility of finding a modern typeface that could be satisfactorily integrated with the illustrations.
Despite this setback to the main project, the Cupid and Psyche narrative became a favourite of Burne-Jones’s and inspired many of his works for the next thirty years.8 The youthful daughter of a king, Psyche was considered so beautiful by her people that she was favoured over Venus. Slighted by this disregard, Venus sent Love, or Cupid, to destroy Psyche with a poisoned arrow. During the heat of summer, Psyche fell asleep by a marble fountain set within a hedge of woodbine and red roses. Cupid, finding her there, was overwhelmed by her beauty and succumbed to his desire to kiss her. He arranged an elaborate ruse so that he could visit his lover under the anonymity of darkness. An object of human adoration, Psyche is vulnerable to Cupid’s destructive yet adoring gaze and Venus’s envy. "
Cupid & Psyche by Burne-Jones HS Puzzles IMG_6818
My latest hand cut jigsaw, made by Howard Smeeton of HS Puzzles. The image is from my favourite painter Edward Burne-Jones.
Cupid discovering Psyche was a favourite subject of Burne-Jones who completed at least 5 paintings of the subject. This one is dated 1867 and is at Manchester Art Gallery. You can see a number of the other versions on this website:
publications.ngv.vic.gov.au/artjournal/edward-burne-jones...
"In 1865 Burne-Jones had begun the preparatory drawings for William Morris’s illustrated epic poem The Earthly Paradise. A section of Morris’s twenty-four episodic tales was the story of Cupid and Psyche, based on Lucius Apuleius’s The Golden Ass from the second century AD. The first edition of The Earthly Paradise greatly compromised Morris’s original concept. Printed using a standard font, it was released without the intended forty-four wood engravings which Burne-Jones had designed to accompany it.7 This overly ambitious project was abandoned in 1868, partly because of the impossibility of finding a modern typeface that could be satisfactorily integrated with the illustrations.
Despite this setback to the main project, the Cupid and Psyche narrative became a favourite of Burne-Jones’s and inspired many of his works for the next thirty years.8 The youthful daughter of a king, Psyche was considered so beautiful by her people that she was favoured over Venus. Slighted by this disregard, Venus sent Love, or Cupid, to destroy Psyche with a poisoned arrow. During the heat of summer, Psyche fell asleep by a marble fountain set within a hedge of woodbine and red roses. Cupid, finding her there, was overwhelmed by her beauty and succumbed to his desire to kiss her. He arranged an elaborate ruse so that he could visit his lover under the anonymity of darkness. An object of human adoration, Psyche is vulnerable to Cupid’s destructive yet adoring gaze and Venus’s envy. "