Neoclassicism

Antonio Canova

L'Amour et Psyché à demi couchée

1787–93

Marble and metal, 61 × 66 1/4 × 39 3/4 in. Musée du Louvre, Paris

Two figures joined at the moment before a kiss, carved so the marble reads as soft flesh: the new classical style at its most sensual.

Look at

• Two crossing diagonals — the wings and the bodies — form an X with the faces where they meet.
• The arms make a ring round the two heads, so the eye circles back to the centre.
• Thin, deep-cut folds of drapery slip from Psyche's hips and spill over the edge of the base.

• Ordered in 1787 by Colonel John Campbell but never delivered; Joachim Murat bought it and showed it in 1801.
• Ceded to Napoleon in 1808; at Compiègne from 1809, then in the Louvre from 1822.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · CC0