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Psyche Bidding Her Family Farewell

1791

Art historian + podcaster Katy Hessel on “Psyche Bidding Her Family Farewell”

Marie-Guillemine Benoist, Psyche Bidding Her Family Farewell, 1791
The year is 1791. France is in the throes of the Revolution, and the future of the country is in turmoil. This painting is of a mythological story, but it speaks to the political moment much more than we might at first think. Let’s take a closer look.
On the far right we have Psyche, in a white dress, embracing her mother for the very last time. Their emotions are illustrated by both the stormy sky behind and the crystal-like tears that fall from their eyes. Also in a state of suffering is Psyche’s father, dressed in red on the far left, with his head buried in his hand, while her sisters comfort each other. The figure praying is the oracle of Delphi.
Here’s Emily Beeny, Chief Curator of the Legion of Honor and Barbara Wolf Curator in Charge of European Art, to explain the story.
The story of Cupid and Psyche begins as a tragedy and ends as a comedy. Psyche is the daughter of a king and her father receives a prophecy from the Delphic oracle saying that his daughter will marry a creature of immeasurable destructive power. So in order to save the kingdom from the predations of her anticipated bridegroom, Psyche’s family decides to abandon her on a rock overlooking the sea. And so the moment depicted in Benoist’s painting is that moment of parting, when Psyche’s parents are about to leave her behind to be claimed by her monstrous bridegroom.
Of course, the creature of immeasurable destructive power invoked by the sibyl, was actually Cupid, god of love, who ends up as the spouse of Psyche and the happy ending of the story. And it is that later portion of the story that’s usually represented by artists in the period — the love story bit with the two lovely nudes as opposed to this turbulent, tragic moment of, sort of, wrenching family drama that Benoist has selected.
What makes Benoist’s version interesting — and different to most — is that Cupid is not present, and we see the story from Psyche’s perspective. Benoist makes us feel the agony Psyche experienced leaving her family, and we empathize with the sacrifice she has to make.
Benoist was 23 years old when she made and exhibited this painting in 1791. That year marked the first time the biannual Salon in Paris was open to those who weren’t members of the Royal Academy. And this opened the door for more women to submit and exhibit their work.

Combining drama and
Neoclassical rigor, Marie-Guillemine Benoist imagined an ancient myth from a
modern perspective. Princess Psyche, dressed in white, embraces her mother
before being abandoned to her fate: doomed to marry a monster, she must be
sacrificed to save the kingdom. While a later chapter from the same story—the
romance of Cupid and Psyche—offered Benoist’s male contemporaries a pretext to
paint graceful nudes, she focused on Psyche’s turbulent emotional life. For a woman
to paint such a subject was rare in itself. When she exhibited this picture in
1791, Benoist became the first female artist ever to show a history painting (a
narrative subject, rather than a portrait or a still life) at the Paris Salon.

Art historian + podcaster Katy Hessel on “Psyche Bidding Her Family Farewell”

Marie-Guillemine Benoist, Psyche Bidding Her Family Farewell, 1791
The year is 1791. France is in the throes of the Revolution, and the future of the country is in turmoil. This painting is of a mythological story, but it speaks to the political moment much more than we might at first think. Let’s take a closer look.
On the far right we have Psyche, in a white dress, embracing her mother for the very last time. Their emotions are illustrated by both the stormy sky behind and the crystal-like tears that fall from their eyes. Also in a state of suffering is Psyche’s father, dressed in red on the far left, with his head buried in his hand, while her sisters comfort each other. The figure praying is the oracle of Delphi.
Here’s Emily Beeny, Chief Curator of the Legion of Honor and Barbara Wolf Curator in Charge of European Art, to explain the story.
The story of Cupid and Psyche begins as a tragedy and ends as a comedy. Psyche is the daughter of a king and her father receives a prophecy from the Delphic oracle saying that his daughter will marry a creature of immeasurable destructive power. So in order to save the kingdom from the predations of her anticipated bridegroom, Psyche’s family decides to abandon her on a rock overlooking the sea. And so the moment depicted in Benoist’s painting is that moment of parting, when Psyche’s parents are about to leave her behind to be claimed by her monstrous bridegroom.
Of course, the creature of immeasurable destructive power invoked by the sibyl, was actually Cupid, god of love, who ends up as the spouse of Psyche and the happy ending of the story. And it is that later portion of the story that’s usually represented by artists in the period — the love story bit with the two lovely nudes as opposed to this turbulent, tragic moment of, sort of, wrenching family drama that Benoist has selected.
What makes Benoist’s version interesting — and different to most — is that Cupid is not present, and we see the story from Psyche’s perspective. Benoist makes us feel the agony Psyche experienced leaving her family, and we empathize with the sacrifice she has to make.
Benoist was 23 years old when she made and exhibited this painting in 1791. That year marked the first time the biannual Salon in Paris was open to those who weren’t members of the Royal Academy. And this opened the door for more women to submit and exhibit their work.

Artist: Marie-Guillemine Benoist (1768–1826)
Title: Psyche Bidding Her Family Farewell
Date: 1791
Place of Creation: France
Object Type: Painting
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 44 1/4 x 57 7/8 in. (112.395 x 147.003 cm)
Credit Line: Museum purchase, John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn; Phoebe Cowles and Robert Girard; Margaret and Will Hearst; Diane B. Wilsey; Barbara A. Wolfe; The Jay and Clara McEvoy Trust; The Michael Taylor Trust; The Margaret Oakes Endowment Income Fund; The Harris Family; Ariane and Lionel Sauvage; and an anonymous donor in celebration of the Legion of Honor Centennial
Accession Number: 2022.2

Louis-Gabriel Admyrauld (1760-1835), La Rochelle, France
By descent to Louis-Gabriel Admyrauld (1784-1850), La Rochelle, France
Thence by descent
Sale, Bordeaux, Vasari Auction, 4 July 2020, lot 10
[Purchased by Matthiesen Gallery, London]
Sold to the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 2022
La béquille de Voltaire au Salon, première promenade, ontenant, par ordre de numéros, L'Explication et la Critique de tous les Ouvrages de Peinture, Sculpture et Architecture, Gravures, Dessins, Modèles, etc. exposés au Louvre, en septembre 1791, Paris: Sous le vestibule de la Cour du Salon, au Palais royal, et chez les Marchands de Nouveautés, 1791, pgs. 36–37 [292–293]: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8458345j.

La Béquille de Voltaire au Salon, Première Promenade, contenant par ordre de numéros, L’Explication at la Critique de tous les Ouvrages de Peinture, Sculpture, et Architecture, Gravure, Dessins, Modèles, etc, exposés au Louvre, en septembre 1791 (Bibliothèque Nationale, Coll. Deloynes, t. XVIII, 438), pgs. 36–37.

Chery, Philippe, Explication et critique impartiale De toutes les Peintures, Sculptures, Gravures, Dessins, &. exposés au Louvre, d'après le décret de l'Assemblée nationale, au mois de septembre 1791, Paris: Se vend rue du Croissant, hôtel du Croissant, près de la rue Montmartre, 1791, pg. 25 [159]: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8458343q.

Chery, Philippe, Lettres analitiques, critiques et philosophiques, sur les tableaux du Sallon [sic] de 1791, Paris: L'an troisième de la Liberté, 1791, pgs. 61–63 [421–423]: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8458348s.

Ballot, Marie–Juliette, Une Élève de David – La Comtesse Benoist, l’Émilie de Demoustier, Paris: Plon–Nourrit, 1914, pgs. 67, 71–74, 80, 241, 243, 246.

Cameron, Vivian, Woman as Image and Image Maker in Paris during the French Revolution, PhD diss., (Yale University), 1983.

Waller, Susan, Women Artists in the Modern Era: A Documentary History, Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1991, pg. 51.

Cameron, Vivian, “Mme Benoist,” in Dictionary of Women Artists, ed. Delia Gaze, London: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1997, pg. 245.

Cameron, Vivian, “Mme Benoist,” in Concise Dictionary of Women Artists, ed. Delia Gaze, Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2001, pg. 183

Reuter, Astrid, Marie–Guilhelmine Benoist: Gestaltungsräume einer Künstlerin um 1800,
Berlin: Lukas, 2002, pgs. 113, 260, 312–315.

Smalls, James, “Slavery is a Woman: Race, Gender and Visuality in Marie Benoist’s Portrait d’une négresse (1800),” Digital publication, Nineteenth Century Art Worldwide 3, no. 1 (Spring 2004): http://www.19thc-artworldwide.org/spring04/286-slavery-is-a-woman-race-gender-and-visuality-in-marie-benoists-portrait-dune-negresse-1800.

Lévy, Marianne, Marie–Guillemine Laville–Leroulx et les siens: Une femme peintre de l’Ancien Régime à la Restauration (1768–1826), Paris: L'Harmattan, 2018, pgs. 80–81, 85.

Dufour, Philippe, “A Record for Marie Guillemine Benoist’s Psyche,” La Gazette Drouot, July 9, 2020: https://www.gazette–drouot.com/en/sold/tableaux–anciens–mobilier–et–objets–d–art/106125.

Spies-Gans, Paris A., “Marie–Guillemine Benoist, Revolutionary Painter,” Digital publication, Art Herstory, December 18, 2020: www.https://artherstory.net/marie–guilleminebenoist–revolutionary–painter/.

Doridou-Heim, A., “Portraits de Femmes,” La Gazette Drouot, no.9, March 5, 2021, pgs. 25–29.

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Art historian + podcaster Katy Hessel on “Psyche Bidding Her Family Farewell”

Transcript

Art historian + podcaster Katy Hessel on “Psyche Bidding Her Family Farewell”

Transcript

Provenance

Exhibition History

Bibliography