This painting is the second 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 the beauty of Psyche, the third daughter of a king and queen, is so great that people pay homage to her rather than the goddess Venus: 'as she walked the streets the people crowded to adore her with garlands and flowers'. In her jealousy Venus summons Cupid, 'that winged son of hers, that most reckless of creatures', and commands him to arouse in her [Psyche] a burning love for an unworthy husband, 'cursed by Fortune in rank, in estate, in condition so that Psyche would be mortified'.

At this stage in the story, although praised for her beauty, no potential husband has presented himself to Psyche. Her parents, afraid that they have unwittingly incurred the anger of the gods, consult the oracle of Apollo and are told that Psyche's future husband is no mortal lover, but a monster ('something cruel and fierce and serpentine'), and that Psyche must be left exposed on a mountain peak, in 'funeral wedlock ritually arrayed'. Giordano's second painting shows Psyche's parents sacrificing at the Temple of Apollo at Miletus before consulting the oracle (though according to Apuleius only her father made the journey). The composition is dominated by a surge upwards and to the right as figures and animals kneel before the statue, and great clouds of smoke rise from the sacrifice.

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