The scene is associated with the story of Cupid and Psyche, immortalised in the 'Metamorphoses' by Lucius Apuleius, in which the god of sexual attraction falls in love with Psyche and visits her at night always to conceal his identity. This is an allegory of love with an erotic touch. The composition is similar to that of Titian's work 'Tarquin and Lucretia', which formed part of the Spanish royal collections from 1571 and is now kept at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. Similarities have been pointed out between the model of female personifying Psyche and the one that posed for Goya's 'Majas', and with María Gabriela Palafox y Portocarrero, Marquesa de Lazán, painted by Goya in 1804.