The Rape of Proserpina - SOLD

The author of this valuable canvas is the Genoese painter Stefano Magnasco (1635 – 1672); he entered the workshop of the master Valerio Castello at a very young age, and subsequently moved to Rome for five years to study; having returned to his homeland, he was already a 'free and experienced' painter, 'he had gained a great name...; and many commissions were destined for him' (Soprani, 1674, p. 262). His eclectic style is influenced by Castello's quick and colourful touch, his Roman studies, his Genoese colleagues Antoon Van Dyck and Grechetto, and the predominant 'Casa Piola'. Legends, myths, tales, Greek or Roman mythology, are a wonderful world where there is everything about the origin of gods, of man, of heroes and heroines, of fantastic creatures; stories of wars, of loves, of envies, of good and bad, acts of strength and courage, epic tales, which were the first teachings in the archaic age (Cicero, Claudian, Homer or Ovid) and an inexhaustible reservoir for artists. The mythological episode depicted is that of the "Rape of Proserpina" (or Kore for Greek mythology) and the presence of some characters allows us to understand that the author was inspired by Ovid's version contained in the poem of the Metamorphoses (385-424). The abduction is set in the meadows near Lake Pergusa in Sicily, here the young and beautiful Proserpina, daughter of Ceres (or Demeter) goddess of agriculture, was picking violets and white lilies together with the nymphs. Venus, in order to exert her power, asked her son Cupid to unite the young goddess with her uncle; the god of love with an arrow struck Pluto Lord of the dead in the heart who fell in love with the girl and decided to marry her and, with the permission of Jupiter, make her queen of the Underworld. The earth split open and Pluto on his chariot drawn by horses kidnapped the graceful maiden who desperately called out to her mother tearing her clothes and letting the picked flowers fall to the ground, while the nymph Cyane, in the lower left, tried in vain to save her. The story, for the more curious, ends like this: Cyane, desperate for not being able to prevent the kidnapping, dissolved in water giving life to the magical source that bears his name and decried also by D'Annunzio 'is Cyane beautiful blue as the air that flows in the slow succession of time to remember a pain never healed'. Ceres, oppressed by an incurable pain, caused a terrible famine on earth, so she asked the god of Olympus to have her young daughter back. Jupiter allowed Proserpina to return to her six months a year, allowing the earth to sprout in spring and summer, and to remain six months, autumn and winter, next to her (become loved) husband. And so the origin of the seasons was explained. The painting is in good condition. Dimensions: 118 x 157 cm