The Toilet of Psyche

The story of Psyche — the mortal girl who becomes the beloved of Cupid and undergoes a series of trials before her apotheosis — was one of the most extensively treated mythological subjects in French Rococo painting. Charles Joseph Natoire painted a celebrated series on the Psyche narrative for the Hôtel de Soubise in Paris, and this version of the Toilet of Psyche, dated 1735 and now in the New Orleans Museum of Art, relates to that decorative cycle. The toilet scene — in which Psyche is attended and adorned — combined the permitted pleasure of depicting female beauty with mythological sanction, and it suited the Rococo interior perfectly. Natoire's Psyche series at the Hôtel de Soubise established him alongside Boucher as the leading painter of amorous mythology in France, and independent versions on the same theme like this one testify to the subject's sustained market value. The New Orleans Museum of Art holds a significant collection of French decorative arts and paintings.

Natoire uses a light, pearlescent palette for Psyche's skin, contrasting it against richer fabric tones and the cooler hues of the attending figures. The composition follows the standard toilet format of a central semi-nude figure surrounded by attendants, allowing variety of pose and the pleasurable accumulation of accessories — mirrors, jewels, fabrics. Brushwork is fluent and confident.