John Gibson

Algernon Percy, 4th Duke of Northumberland (1792–1865), probably Stanwick Park, Yorkshire, or Northumberland House, London, from circa 1854;
thence by descent.

Letter from John Gibson to Samuel Carter Hall, dated Rome, 17 December 1855, manuscript at the National Art Library, London, ref. no: MSL/1941/421;
R. Gunnis, Dictionary of British Sculptors 1660-1851, London, 1968, p. 173; 
E. Rigby Eastlake, Life of John Gibson, Sculptor, London, 1870, reprinted 2010, p. 253;
T. Matthews, The Biography of John Gibson, R.A., Sculptor, Rome, London, 1911, p. 243

Overall the condition of the marble is very good. There is dirt and some minor wear to the surface consistent with age including some dust in the crevices and two darkened areas at the left bedposts and Psyche's nose. There are a few small rust-coloured stains to the surface, including along the ledge and to Cupid's proper right shoulder. There are some minor naturally occurring inclusions. The relief was embedded in a wall; the outline of the frame is visible along the edges and the lower edge was left unfinished.
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These exquisitely carved marble reliefs were made by John Gibson, the greatest British Neoclassical sculptor, who was trained in Rome by Antonio Canova and Bertel Thorvaldsen. They exhibit the serene classicism and compositional elegance associated with Gibson's finest works. This pure aesthetic brought Gibson great fame during his lifetime, and he received patronage from the highest levels of British, Italian and American society. His most loyal patrons included Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, who commissioned a version of The Marriage of Psyche and Celestial Love from Gibson, and counted the sculptor as a personal friend.

The Story of Cupid and Psyche

Gibson was fascinated by the fable of Cupid and Psyche, the notion of an amorous union between the human and the divine. The story is first recounted by the 2^nd-century CE Roman writer Apuleius in his famous novel, The Golden Ass. It describes the young princess Psyche, whose beauty was such that men would become obsessed with her and neglect to worship Venus, goddess of love. Furious, Venus sends Cupid to fire his arrow at Psyche, so that she will fall in love with the ugliest man in the kingdom. However, the plot goes awry when Cupid sets eyes on the young Pysche and is entranced by her beauty, firing his burning arrow into his own heart. Fearing that they have angered the gods, Psyche's parent's banish her to a craggy precipice to confront her death, but she is saved by Zephyr and conveyed to Cupid's palace. There she is married to the god of love, but under the cover of darkness and so is unaware of her husband's true identity. It is only when her jealous sisters arrive and persuade her to lift the veil of secrecy, that she takes a candle and spies upon Cupid whilst he sleeps. Unfortunately she wakes the god in the process and he takes flight, believing that their love has been compromised by a lack of trust. 

Distraught and overwhelmed with her passion for Cupid, Psyche goes in search of him, eventually begging Venus for help. Yet the goddess is filled with spite and sets Psyche a number of impossible tasks, which lead her to the Underworld, where she falls into a neverending slumber. It is only then that Cupid forgives Psyche and goes in search of her. He lifts her into the air and transports her to Olympus, where Jupiter, king of the gods, holds a council in which Venus is forced to retract her curse. Psyche is then handed a cup of Ambrosia, the drink of immortality, so that she and Cupid may live together for eternity.

The story of Cupid and Psyche has preoccupied artists throughout history, and it was a subject which captured the imaginations of both Canova and Thorvaldsen, Gibson's principal influences. However, Gibson appears to have been especially captivated by this story, to the extent that he even produced a set of illustrations for Elizabeth Strutt's version of the fable, published in 1850. Numerous of his drawings, preserved in the Royal Academy, London, attest to this interest. Writing to his friend and patron Mrs Sandbach in 1843, he described the circumstances surrounding the project to illustrate Strutt's volume: 

For some years past I have felt a desire to illustrate this beautiful story, and began that design of the Marriage which you have [this reference may suggest he carved a version of The Marriage of Psyche and Celestial Love for Sandbach]. This fable has been illustrated by Raphael and other great men, but still I feel that I could also do something and keep clear of them. (As quoted in Eastlake, op. cit., pp. 104-105.)

Gibson, however, appears to have been particularly interested in the concept of Cupid as Anteros, or Celestial Love, the personification of non-earthly Platonic love; he discusses this in some depth in his correspondence with Mrs Sandbach (Eastlake, op. cit., pp. 99-105). It is probably for this reason that he decided to call Cupid 'Celestial Love' in the first of the Northumberland reliefs. The role of the profane aspects of Cupid's character in Apuleius' story is somewhat unclear, and it is likely that Gibson wished to adopt a wholly elevated interpretation for his depiction of the subject.

The Marriage of Psyche and Celestial Love

This beautiful model appealed to Gibson's most important and loyal patrons. In 1844, Queen Victoria commissioned Gibson to carve a marble version of the model to be given to her husband as a gift on their wedding anniversary in January 1845. In the event it was not finished until later in the year and so the Queen presented it to him as a Christmas gift. The relief is now in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle (inv. no. 41062). It is possible, given the letter quoted above, that Mr and Mrs Sandbach also commissioned a version, though the sculptor was probably referring to their Cupid pursuing Psyche. 

The date at which Gibson first conceived the present model is unknown. If it is the case, as has long been presumed, that the Royal Collection relief is the prime version in marble, then Gibson would have created the model in circa 1844. The original plaster is housed in the Royal Academy of Arts, London (inv. no. 03/2036), there catalogued as dating to circa 1844. Interestingly, there is a preparatory drawing in the Royal Academy which shows Cupid's legs in a different position, and includes two footstools (inv. no. 05/553). The Royal Collection and Northumberland marbles are the only known versions.

Gibson's model is heavily indebted to the work of his master, Bertel Thorvaldsen. The composition is very close to Thorvaldsen's Amor and Psyche of 1810 (marble, Thorvaldsensmuseum, Copenhagen, inv. no. A 430). Thorvaldsen's arrangement with Pysche leaning her head into Amor's (Cupid's) neck, as well as their differently styled wings, the bow on the ground, and the arched delimitation of the relief, correspond with Gibson's composition. The inclusion of the Grecian bed by Gibson in his relief may be a nod to another celebrated Neoclassical artist, the French painter Jacques-Louis David, who placed the mythical lovers on a similar platform in his late painting, Cupid and Pysche, in the Cleveland Museum of Art (1817; inv. no. 1962.37).

The superb finish and virtuoso carving seen in the Northumberland relief compares with Gibson's finest works. This technical brilliance is paralleled in Neoclassical sculpture only in the works of Thorvaldsen and Canova. Note the tenderness of the embrace, the delicate way the lover's touch each other's arms, and the wonderful play of textures in the contrasting wings. Gibson injects a sense of potential energy into this calm scene, with Cupid's toes just touching the floor, as his right leg swings from the bed. With his powerful wings, the god may just fly away, as he does at the most dramatic moment of the fable.

Cupid pursuing Psyche

This ethereal relief, representing Cupid, filled with passion, pursuing Psyche, is, according to Eastlake, the prime version in marble produced by Gibson (op. cit., p. 253). The model is, however, likely to be slightly earlier because, in a letter dated 1855 (discussed below), Gibson states that cameos of the model had been reproduced for a number of years; cameos were made of Gibson's models by Tommaso and Luigi Saulini, Roman hardstone carvers (Greenwood, op. cit.). In fact, there is a little circular plaster version of the model, reminiscent of a cameo, in the Fogg Museum, Harvard University (inv. no. 1910.12.2.4). 

The likely prime version is the smaller marble housed in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (inv. no. 7272), which was commissioned by Mr and Mrs Sandbach. This would appear to be the marble discussed by Gibson in the above quote from his 1843 letter to Mrs Sandbach. There is another version, of similar dimensions to the present relief, in the Royal Academy of Arts, London (inv. no. 04/740). This was bequethed by Gibson from his own collection, bearing testament to the esteem in which he held the model. According to Eastlake, only one other version was carved, a marble for a Miss Webb (untraced) (Eastlake, op. cit., p. 253).

The Northumberland relief is an exemplar of Gibson's technical skill. The two lovers are elegantly suspended in mid-flight, the composition beautifully balanced, as Pysche's right arm lifts above her head to match Cupid's raised left leg. Gibson's figures float effortlessly in the air in a manner which seems to defy gravity and the heaviness of the natural material. The sense of lightness is enhanced by the excellent carving of the billowing drapes, which envelop the figures in multiple gossamer folds. Small details such as the outstretched toes and the little ribbon, carefully concealing Cupid's gender, are testament to Gibson's perfectionism. Yet the most powerful aspect of the relief is the intense, loving, gaze held by Cupid and Psyche, which Gibson captures so perfectly.

A Joint Commission: The Northumberland Gibsons

The circumstances surrounding the commission of the Northumberland Gibsons are, fortunately, sketched out by the sculptor himself in a letter to the engraver S. C. Hall, dated Rome, 17 December 1855 (NAL, ref. no: MSL/1941/421). Gibson writes:

I have received the engraving of the Cupid and Psyche... I made last year a duplicate of this basso relievo for His Grace the Duke of Northumberland as it was the Duchess who would have it, I should be obliged if you would send an impression to her Grace... I also made for the Duke a companion basso relievo of Cupid and Pysche flying in the air. It is the Soul persued by desire every year they sell many cameos of it ...

What this tells us is that, certainly in the case of the Marriage of Psyche and Celestial Love, it was the Duchess, not the Duke, who instigated the commission. The fact that the Duke bought the relief(s) on her behalf suggests that for them the purchase may also have been intended to celebrate their marriage. The subject matter is, of course, entirely appropriate for such a purpose. It seems probable that the Duchess was inspired by Queen Victoria's commission and that she had seen the Windsor relief either in person (possible for an individual of her high rank) or in a photograph or engraving (Prince Albert had his marble photographed in 1854 for an album; Royal Collection, inv. no. 1854).

The Northumberland Gibsons were, until earlier this year, kept in one of the family's more recent secondary residences. They are therefore likely to have been originally installed in one of the family's demolished past secondary houses, either Stanwick Park, Yorkshire, or Northumberland House, London. The former was probably the favourite of the 4th Duke and Duchess' residences, and so is a strong candidate. Gibson's reliefs would, however, have been equally appropriate for Northumberland House, which had a gallery filled with copies after Raphael by Anton Raphael Mengs (1728-1779), including his Marriage of Cupid and Psyche (Walford, op. cit., pp. 135-141).

RELATED LITERATURE
B. Read, Victorian Sculpture, New Haven and London, 1982; D. Bilbey, British Sculpture 1470-2000, cat. Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2002, pp. 271-274;
Martin Greenwood, ‘Gibson, John (1790–1866)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/10625, accessed 10 May 2014]; J. Marsden (ed.), Victoria and Albert. Art and Love, exh. cat. Royal Collection, London, 2010, pp. 72-73, no. 18