This is a finely painted beautiful KPM Berlin Plaque, Circa 1885 in date and after P. Thumann depicting a winged nymph kneeling beside a woodland pond, titled on the reverse "Psyche Am Wasserspiegel" within the original antique giltwood frame and signed Kiess on the bottom right hand side. A very similar plaque realized $13,145 at Christie's New York Rockefeller Plaza, sale 1426 Lot 57 on 26 October 2004. Condition: The plaque and the gilded frame both in excellent condition, please see photos for confirmation. Dimensions in cm: Height 30 x Width 23 - Frame Height 18 x Width 11 - Plaque Dimensions in inches: Height 1 foot x Width 9 inches - Frame Height 7 inches x Width 4 inches - Plaque As most of you know, psyche is the Greek word for soul. It's also the Greek word for butterfly. If you have a protagonist in a story whose name is Psyche, you might expect that she will go through a major transition and crisis. Will she survive it? Will she come through and be transformed, or will she die? That's one way of looking at the Psyche myth. Those of you who heard Robert Bly's White Bear story on the first day of this conference heard a variation of the Eros and Psyche myth. Aphrodite gives her four tasks that she must learn to get through. The third task was the creative task: Psyche is told that she must fill a crystal flask with water from a stream that runs in a continual cycle from the River Styx to the highest crag. The great water of life, the water of creativity, cycles. It is archetypal. It moves and moves and moves, and yet each person needs to seize some of that fluidity and give it shape. Some of that is a conscious desire to capture archetypal energies, visions, emotions and give them shape through your own personality, which is relative to the great expanse of the archetypal world of gods and goddesses. It is symbolically fragile, and yet this is the task. Again Psyche looks at the task. She sees this river that is carved into the side of the mountain. It goes down to the River Styx and then rises up through a spring to come up to the top again and down the face, etching its way into the mountain. If that isn't bad enough, there are snake-like dragons on either side warning, "Stay away! Stay away!" The water itself is hissing. Psyche again thinks, "Too much! I can't do it!" when another symbol comes to her aid. Our reference: 06720 Please feel free to email or call us (+44 20 8809 9605) to arrange a viewing in our North London warehouse. Shipping: We ship worldwide and deliver to Mainland UK addresses free of charge. A shipping cost to all other destinations must be requested prior to purchase. To request a shipping quote for the items in your cart, please click HERE. Delivery and return policy: We require that someone be home on the agreed delivery day if applicable, otherwise a redelivery fee will apply. In accordance with Distance Selling Regulations, we offer a 14-day money back guarantee if you are not satisfied with the item. The item must be returned in its original packaging and condition. Unless the item is not as described in a material way, the buyer is responsible for return shipping expenses. Buyers are fully responsible for any customs duties or local taxes that may be incurred on items sent outside of the European Union.