Felice Giani – Psyche receives the ointment from Proserpina

Felice Giani

(San Sebastiano Curone 1758 – Rome 1823)

Psyche receives the ointment from Proserpina

1792-94

Oil on paper on canvas, 29.5 x 37 cm

This is the preparatory study for the panel of the same name in the Psyche Gallery on the noble floor of Palazzo Laderchi in Faenza, where eleven decorative compartments narrate the tale of Cupid and Psyche taken from Apuleius’s Golden Ass. The sketch, which bears the metric references for the large-scale translation of the invention on the neutral background around the figured part, must probably be placed in the planning phase of the mural cycle, conceived starting in 1792 and built in 1794.