Psyche Opening the Golden Box

Psyche Opening the Golden Box from 1904 depicts the climactic moment in the myth of Cupid and Psyche, when Psyche — completing the last of the impossible tasks set by Venus — opens a box said to contain beauty from Persephone's realm, only to be overcome by the sleep of death within it. Waterhouse painted this moment from Apuleius's Metamorphoses as part of his sustained exploration of women from classical mythology at moments of fateful action. Psyche's story — with its themes of curiosity, trials, divine hostility, and ultimate transformation — provided Waterhouse with exactly the kind of psychologically and symbolically rich narrative he favored.

Waterhouse renders Psyche at the moment of opening the golden box, her posture capturing both the act of opening and its immediately overwhelming consequence. His technique gives the box's golden surface a convincing material weight. The figure's clothing and hair are handled with the fluid technique of his mature style, while the landscape background recedes atmospherically.