Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00011002Cupid and Psyche
About the Artwork
This drawing belongs to a group of preparatory studies for Jacques-Louis David's painting Cupid and Psyche, also in the Cleveland Museum of Art's collection. Here, David integrated looser charcoal sketches into a finished work in which his composition was fully established. Only minor details, such as Cupid's facial expression, were ultimately changed. In layers of diluted gray wash and outlines of black ink, David evoked the precise appearance of his final canvas using monochromatic media.
Inscriptions
signed and dated, lower right: L. David 1813.
Provenance
after 1813-after 1841: Given by the artist to Nicholas Phillippe Auguste, Compte de Forbin [1777-1841], Paris ?-?: Private collection, Paris 1973: (sale, Hotel Drouot, November 7, 1973, no. 107) 1975-?: (Galerie Arnoldi-Livie, Munich) by 1975: (Heim Gallery, London) by 1979-?: (Artemis Group (David Carritt), London) after 1979-?: (Eugene V. Thaw, New York) ?-?: Ed Hill, El Paso, Texas ?-?: Elizabeth Eddy, Ohio around 1980-?: (Richard L. Feigen & Co., New York) ?-?: Paul Weiss, New York by 1994-2003: (Richard L. Feigen & Co., New York, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH) 2002-: Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history
Jacques-Louis David: Empire to Exile. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, CA (February 1-April 24, 2005). Jacques Louis David: Radical Draftsman. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (organizer) (February 14-May 15, 2022) https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2022/jacques-louis-david-radical-draftsman.
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Jacques-Louis David (French, 1748–1825)
- Date
- 1813
- Medium
- gray wash and pen and black ink with white paint and traces of black chalk
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 16.7 x 22.4 cm (6 9/16 x 8 13/16 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund
- Accession no.
- 2002.91
More by Jacques-Louis David in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00011002
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