Oil paint on canvas
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<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/frederic-lord-leighton-342" aria-label="More by Frederic, Lord Leighton" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Frederic, Lord Leighton</a>
Bath Psyche
Presented by the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest 1890
actions: postures and motions
actions: processes and functions
adults
animals: birds
architecture
arm / arms raised
bath
bathing / swimming
classical
classical myths: gods and heroes
clothing and personal items
colonnade
courtyard
curtain
dove
drapery
dressing / undressing
features
female
furnishings
leisure and pastimes
natural phenomena
nudes
objects
people
periods and styles
Psyche
recreational activities
reflection
religion and belief
stair / step
standing
townscapes / man-made features
woman
<p>The story of Psyche comes from a tale by the Roman poet Lucius Apuleius. Psyche lived in the golden palace of Cupid, the god of love. Each night Cupid would visit Psyche’s bedroom to have sex with her, without revealing his identity. Here we see Psyche undressing to bathe before Cupid’s arrival, gazing at her reflection. Leighton based Psyche’s pose on an ancient statue of Venus Leaving the Bath that he’d seen in Naples in 1859. He may also have designed the frame, which echoes the architectural details in the background of the picture.</p><p><em>Gallery label, August 2019</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
29 August 2001 – 25 July 2005
2005-07-25
29 August 2001
2001-08-29
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2001-08-29
Art and Victorian Society
Collection based display
1 November 2001 – 31 August 2003
2003-08-31
6 September 2002 – 5 January 2003
2003-01-05
2002-09-06
Brooklyn Museum of Art (New York, USA)
2001-11-01
Exposed: The Victorian Nude
Exhibition
8 August 2005 – 4 October 2010
2010-10-04
8 August 2005 – 4 October 2010
2010-10-04
2005-08-08
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2005-08-08
Victorian Spectacle
Collection based display
2 April 2011 – 17 June 2012
2012-06-17
2 April 2011 – 17 July 2011
2011-07-17
2011-04-02
Victoria and Albert Museum (London, UK)
http://www.vam.ac.uk
12 September 2011 – 15 January 2012
2012-01-15
2011-09-12
Musée d’Orsay (Paris, France)
18 February 2012 – 17 June 2012
2012-06-17
2012-02-18
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young Museum (San Francisco, USA)
http://www.famsf.org
2011-04-02
The Cult of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900
Loan-out
15 September 2012 – 31 January 2013
2013-01-31
15 September 2012 – 31 January 2013
2013-01-31
2012-09-15
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (Birmingham, UK)
http://www.bmag.org.uk
2012-09-15
Love and Death: Victorian Paintings from Tate
Loan-out
7 August 2014 – 24 July 2022
2022-07-24
7 August 2014
2014-08-07
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2014-08-07
Gallery 9
Collection based display
5 November 2016 – 31 August 2025
2025-08-31
5 November 2016 – 5 February 2017
2017-02-05
2016-11-05
Art Gallery of New South Wales (Sydney, Australia)
http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au
18 March 2017 – 16 July 2017
2017-07-16
2017-03-18
Auckland Art Gallery (Auckland, New Zealand)
11 August 2017 – 4 February 2018
2018-02-04
2017-08-11
Seoul Olympic Museum of Art (Seoul, South Korea)
24 March 2018 – 24 June 2018
2018-06-24
2018-03-24
Yokohama Museum of Art (Yokohama, Japan)
13 July 2018 – 28 October 2018
2018-10-28
2018-07-13
Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts (Kaohsiung, Taiwan)
2016-11-05
Nude: art from the Tate collection
Tate partnerships & programmes
The Bath of Psyche
support: 1892 × 622 mm
frame: 2362 × 1187 × 195 mm
Presented by the Trustees of the <a href="/search?gid=999999977" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Chantrey Bequest</a> 1890
<p>The legend of Cupid and Psyche was extremely popular with writers and artists in the second half of the 19<sup>th </sup>Century, and this picture is typical of the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/classicism" title="Glossary definition for 'Classicism'"><span>classical</span></a> revival in <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/v/victorian" title="Glossary definition for 'Victorian'"><span>Victorian</span></a> art at this time. The story is related in the Roman poet Lucius Apuleius's <i>Metamorphoses </i>or <i>The Golden Ass</i>.  Psyche's beauty was so great that no man dared to approach her as a suitor. An oracle told her parents to dress her for marriage and sacrifice her, but she was transported instead to the golden palace of Cupid, the god of love. She lived there in a blissful state, waited on by slaves, and each night Cupid would make love to her, but without his identity being revealed.  He later abandoned Psyche when, encouraged by her jealous sisters, she gazed on his sleeping form by the light of a lamp and inadvertently dropped hot oil on his body.  

</p><p>The <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> shows Psyche undressing herself in order to bathe before Cupid's arrival.  She is completely self-absorbed, and her narcissism is emphasised by her reflection, captured in the smooth surface of the water. The subject of a bather and the exquisite draughtsmanship clearly pay tribute to J.A.D. Ingres (1780-1867) and especially such works as <i>La Source</i> (1820-56, Musée d'Orsay, Paris). The woman's pose, with arms raised to reveal her naked body, derives more specifically from the <i>Callipygian Venus</i>, a famous Greek statue that Leighton would have seen in the Capodimonte Museum in Naples.  Such a subject would have been potentially shocking to a Victorian audience, but the picture appears to have met with very few moral objections when it was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1890.

</p><p>Leighton was one of about 45 artists who were asked by the artist Lawrence Alma-Tadema to assist in the decoration of the atrium of his house in Grove End Road, St John's Wood (Leighton was offered one of Alma-Tadema's own paintings in exchange). Each artist was asked to paint a <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/panel" title="Glossary definition for 'Panel'"><span>panel</span></a> 32 inches high and between 2½ and 8 inches wide. According to legend, Leighton, sitting opposite Alma-Tadema at dinner, picked up a narrow-bladed dessert knife and said to his friend, 'My dear Tadema, what sort of subject do you expect me to paint on this?' (<i>Strand Magazine</i>, December 1902, pp.617-8).

</p><p>Leighton's original panel measured 32 inches by 6½  inches and even the present version is almost twice its width.  The <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>composition</span></a> emphasises the picture's verticality through the soaring Ionic columns (echoed in the picture's frame) and the downward flow of Psyche's draperies.

</p><p><b>Further reading:<br/></b>Stephen Jones, Christopher Newall, Leonée Ormond, Richard Ormond, Benedict Read, <i>Frederic Leighton 1830-1896</i>, exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy of Arts, London 1996, pp.214-5, no.108, reproduced p.214, in colour.<br/>Alison Smith, <i>The Victorian Nude, Sexuality, Morality and Art</i>, Manchester 1996, p.210.

</p><p>Frances Fowle<br/>December 2000</p>
Summary
2005-09-15T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<div><p><span>The story of Psyche comes from a tale by the Roman poet Lucius Apuleius. Psyche lived in the golden palace of Cupid, the god of love. Each night Cupid would hide his identity, visit Psyche’s bedroom and they would have sex. Here we see Psyche undressing to bathe before Cupid’s arrival, gazing at her reflection. Frederic Leighton based Psyche’s pose on an ancient statue of Venus Leaving the Bath that he’d seen in Naples in 1859. He may also have designed the frame, which echoes the architectural details in the background of the picture.</span></p></div>
Online caption
2024-04-22T00:00:00
online-caption
ONLINE_CAPTION
actions: postures and motions actions: processes and functions adults animals: birds architecture arm / arms raised bath bathing / swimming classical classical myths: gods and heroes clothing and personal items colonnade courtyard curtain dove drapery dressing / undressing features female furnishings leisure and pastimes natural phenomena nudes objects people periods and styles Psyche recreational activities reflection religion and belief stair / step standing townscapes / man-made features woman