Let’s take it from the end, when Cupid and Psyche finally got married with a rich wedding banquet to which all the gods were invited. It’s exactly when “The Three Graces” are featured while spreading the intoxicating scent of balsam around the heavenly feast.

A common thread connects this and another famous carving by Canova: the same classical theme of beauty beyond time and space that was taken up in 1787 from the Greek and Roman mythology, and the same year the sculptor met the Scottish Colonel John Campbell in Naples and started working on his future masterpiece. Indeed, the Colonel was also a passionate art-collector and, during his journey across Italy to purchase several antiquities, he commissioned to Canova the “Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss” sculpture.