This painting is the seventh in a set of twelve in the Royal Collection depicting part of the story of Cupid and Psyche. The subject of this series comes from The Metamorphoses or Golden Ass by the second-century AD writer Apuleius: it is one of the stories that intersperse the main narrative of Lucius on his travels (Book IV, para. 28 - Book VI, para. 24). The tale of the many travails endured by ill-matched lovers (one mortal and one divine) before their final happy marriage, it was interpreted in the Renaissance as a Neoplatonic allegory of the progress of the soul (Psyche means 'soul' in Greek) towards salvation through Divine Love. The outcome of their union is Pleasure.

In Apuleius's story he describes how Psyche's sisters, envious of the delights enjoyed by her, they persuade her that her husband [Cupid] is a serpentine monster who will devour her and advise her to kill 'it' while it sleeps. To do this she needs a lamp to see by and a knife to wound. This painting shows Psyche on a garden terrace, holding the lamp and knife and standing between her two sisters; they appear again in the right background being ferried by Zephyrus. The old woman in the foreground holding a mask symbolises Deceit. Although not in the text, Giordano includes the listening Cupid at top left. This detail makes sense of the story, as Cupid is fully aware of the sisters' plans and tries in vain to warn Psyche of them.

Catalogue entry adapted from The Art of Italy in the Royal Collection: Renaissance and Baroque, London, 2007