#simone pignoni

Artemisia by Simone Pignoni (Italian, 1611--1698)

The Rape of Proserpine (c.1650) by Simone Pignoni

Oil on canvas, 74.3 x 59.4 cm, 17th century

Simone Pignoni The abduction of Proserpine 1650

Simone Pignoni, 1650, Le miracle de la broderie. Brest, Musee des beaux arts.

The story of Proserpine's abduction into the underworld, comes from Ovid's tales of the Loves of the Gods, as recounted in the Metamorphoses (5: 385-424) and the Fasti (4: 417-450). Proserpine was the daughter of the corn-goddess Ceres, and while picking flowers in a meadow she caught the eye of Pluto, the King of the Underworld. Inflamed with passion -- according to Ovid, he had been struck by Cupid's arrow -- Pluto abducted the young beauty, descending with her on his chariot into the gaping chasm that he opened in the earth, toward his subterranean realm. The painting isolates the alarmed nymph from that larger composition, discarding Pluto altogether, with the effect of emphasizing instead Proserpine's graceful beauty, luminous ivory skin, and the exquisitely observed flowers that ornament her youthful charms. The painting likely served as an Allegory of Spring.

L'Enlèvement de Proserpine ,1650

“Santa Dorotea”