Story of Psyche

Story of Psyche of around 1490, now at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, belongs to the rare category of purely mythological secular narrative in Sellaio's output — the extended Apuleian story of Cupid and Psyche, which had experienced a major revival of interest among Florentine humanists from the 1460s onward through the Neoplatonic Academy. The story's combination of erotic narrative and philosophical allegory made it ideal for the decorated furniture of aristocratic Florentine households, and Sellaio painted multiple cassone panels with this subject. The Boston version is among his most extensive treatments of the Psyche cycle's episodes.

The extended narrative cycle across a single panel requires episodic compositional organisation — multiple scenes from the Psyche story laid out across a continuous landscape setting — a format that draws on ancient Roman pictorial tradition mediated through Florentine workshop practice. The figure style retains Sellaio's characteristic Botticellesque grace even within the secular mythological context.