Jules-Joseph LEFEBVRE (Tournan, 1836 - Paris, 1912) Psyche Panel Signed lower right: "Jules Lefebvre 42,9 x 29,7 cm Presented at the 1883 Salon, after the artist had already sold it to the Knoedler Gallery in New York, the Psyche that our painting prepares, received an enthusiastic welcome. But as a critic points out: "the Psyche of Mr. Jules Lefebvre has perhaps not reread Apulée with great care" (Exposition universelle des Beaux-Arts. Dix années du Salon de peintre et de sculpture, 1879-1888, Paris, 1889, p.57). By removing Psyche's wings, visible in the preparatory sketches (published in L'Art, 1883), and placing a box in her hands, Lefebvre runs the risk that the viewer might confuse her with Pandora, a subject he had already treated in 1877 (Buenos Aires, Museo de Bellas Artes). For Louis Enault, the only thing that matters is "the adorable image of candor, youth and innocence". Claude Vento, thurifer of academism, even says that Psyche is: "one of the sweetest works that have protested against the moral lowering of art, one of the most complete victories of the ideal over naturalism" (C. Vento, Painters of the Woman, Paris, 1888, p. 320).