These compositions, which became the first and last images of the Palace Green murals, epitomize Burne- Jones s blend of the classical and the romantic — "mythology in the midst of medievalism," as the Art Journal put it 1 — which in the Cupid and Psyche series perfectly matches Morris's stat- ed intention in the whole of The Earthly Paradise to honor the "continued thread of living Greek tradition coming down almost to the end of the Middle Ages among Greek-speaking people, and overlapping the full development of romanticism in Western Europe." 2 The more sculpturally classical drapery of the figures in the opening image accords with the sterner mood of the story's beginning. Jealous of Psyche s beauty, the goddess Venus sends Cupid to destroy her: instead, he falls in love with the sleeping princess: As Love cast down his eyes with a half smile, Godlike and cruel, that faded in a while, And long he stood above her hidden eyes With red lips parted in a god’s surprise. After performing a series of harrowing tasks, Psyche is finally reunited with Cupid and, forgiven by Venus, is allowed to remain with him as an immortal. The moment illustrated in Cupid Delivering Psyche is treated by Burne -Jones more in the manner of the romantic Pre-Raphaelitism of earlier water- colors (such as Cupid's Forge, 1861; private collection), with softer, rounded forms and suffused color. A similar watercolor of Cupid Finding Psyche, rather darker in color and dated 1866, is in the British Museum, 3 while a group of six figure- and- drapery studies for the composition is in the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts. 4 The prime version of Cupid Delivering Psyche (London Borough of Hammersmith Public Libraries) was exhibited at the Old Water-Colour Society in 1867; another, unfinished, is in the Sheffield City Art Galleries. 1. Art Journal, June 1866, p. 174. 2. Mackail 1899, vol. 1, pp. 178-79. 3. British Museum collection 1994, no. 58. 4. Fogg Art Museum 1946, no. 6-11.
By Walter Crane with later touches by Burne-Jones