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An oil painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti depicts Persephone who kidnapped by the god Hades. She holds a pomegranate in her left hand, a symbol of captivity. According to mythology eating food from the Underworld would cause a living person to stay there forever. Persephone was forced to eat six pomegranates, one for each month she had to stay there.
Jane Morris was the model for Persephone, the wife of William Morris, a Rossetti's friend, and was also Rossetti’s lover. The artist's signature is in the lower left frame ("DANTE GABRIELE ROSSETTI RITRASSE NEL CAPODANNO DEL 1874", Dante Gabriele Rossetti painted this at New Year's Eve of 1874), and in the upper right frame one can reads his sonnet to Persephone.
Caption Oil paint on canvas with the figure of Persephone
Mythic people Persephone (Goddess)
Type Other
Artist/Creator Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882)
Current position Tate Gallery, United Kingdom
Index number N05064
Dating 1874 μ.Χ.
Notes
‘Proserpine‘, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1874 | Tate
Rossetti΄s sonnet for Persephone is that below (Παρακάτω παρατίθεται το σονέτο του Rossetti προς την Περσεφόνη στα αγγλικά):
Afar away the light that brings cold cheerUnto this wall, - one instant and no moreAdmitted at my distant palace-door.Afar the flowers of Enna from this drearDire fruit, which, tasted once, must thrall me here.Afar those skies from this Tartarean greyThat chills me: and afar, how far away,The nights that shall be from the days that were.
Afar from mine own self I seem, and wingStrange ways in thought, and listen for a sign:And still some heart unto some soul doth pine,(Whose sounds mine inner sense in fain to bring,Continually together murmuring,) -"Woe's me for thee, unhappy Proserpine!"
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