This painting captures a dramatic moment in a Greek myth. Psyche’s beauty makes Venus jealous, so Venus sends her son Cupid to destroy her, but instead he falls in love with her. In this scene Psyche, on the left, has fallen into a deadly sleep after opening a cursed box. Her lover, Cupid, wakes her with a kiss. Edward Burne-Jones produced at least five versions of this subject and later a series of paintings telling the whole story of Cupid and Psyche.
This third version of the subject made during a period which began, as Cecil French observed (Barbizon House 1934 Cat no 21 p) " ... the prolonged search for form and style" after the experience of his recent visit to Italy. He had encountered the work of Alfred Stevens and his pupils when working upon the Green Dining Room in the South Kensington Museum, their style was securely based upon that of Michelangelo, whom Burne-Jones also admired. Witnessing a group applying their principles to the applied arts would have encouraged him, already departing from the medievalism which dominated had his earlier period thus emboldening him to continue in his quest for mature design solutions.