Psyche Obtaining the Elixir of Beauty from Proserpine

The fourth of Psyche's labours set by Venus was to descend to the underworld and return with a box of Proserpine's beauty elixir — a task that combined the challenge of navigating death with the mythological encoding of female beauty as a divine and dangerous substance. Charles Joseph Natoire painted this subject in 1735, a year that saw him working extensively on mythological subjects following his success with the Hôtel de Soubise Psyche cycle. The Los Angeles County Museum of Art holds the painting as part of its collection of European old masters. Natoire's treatment of the subject emphasises the moment of Psyche receiving the box from Proserpine in the underworld, a scene rich in compositional potential: two female figures, the contrast of the mortal and the infernal queen, and the mysterious container of beauty itself. The Psyche cycle was particularly amenable to Rococo treatment because its narrative combined danger and desire with the pleasures of depicting female beauty.

The underworld setting offers Natoire a darker tonal range than his usual luminous mythologies, and he exploits the contrast between the warmer skin tones of the figures and the cooler, more shadowed environment. Proserpine's queenly attributes and Psyche's mortal vulnerability are distinguished through colour, posture, and expression. The handling remains fluid throughout.