Proserpine

Proserpine is an 1874 oil on canvas by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, a central figure of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, who returned to a subject from Roman mythology. The goddess holds a pomegranate, the fruit that, according to the myth, bound her to the underworld after she ate it in the realm of Pluto. The painting turns on that gesture: a woman caught between two worlds, with the forbidden fruit standing for both desire and punishment.

The work had a long and troubled history. Rossetti began it in 1871, but he was not satisfied with it until 1872, when earlier versions had already failed to convince him. He made several repetitions, some promised to Charles Augustus Howell and one commissioned by the shipping magnate Frederick Richards Leyland, which was damaged during a train journey. The version now in Tate Britain is the seventh of the eight known, and the last was begun in 1881 and finished shortly before the painter's death in 1882. His persistence in reworking the picture is evident in his correspondence, where he describes it with weary exasperation.

The model was Jane Morris, wife of William Morris and the painter's lover. Many readers have seen in the myth a reflection of her position, divided between a settled marriage and a secret attachment, much like Proserpine travelling between two worlds each year. This reading is common, though it is best taken as a plausible interpretation rather than a documented fact.

The frame, designed by Rossetti himself, has medallions resembling a fruit cut across, echoing the pomegranate. Above the painting, a sonnet by the artist, written in Italian on the canvas and in English on the frame, reflects on the gap between real life and longing, with the image of a wall that separates the protagonist from what she has lost.

Painter

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Date

1874

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

125 × 61 cm

Museum

Tate Britain, London

Movement

Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood

Genre

mythological painting

Depicts

pomegranate, Proserpina

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