![]() Jane, trapped by convention, was also tasting forbidden fruit. ![]() Proserpine had been imprisoned in Pluto's underground realm for tasting the forbidden pomegranate. His accompanying sonnet to this work is a poem of longing: "And still some heart unto some soul doth pine," (see sonnet below) carrying an inescapable allusion to his yearning to seduce Jane from her unhappy marriage with William Morris. Unable to decide as a young man whether to concentrate on painting or poetry, his work is infused with his poetic imagination and an individual interpretation of literary sources. The ivy branch in the background may be taken as a symbol of clinging memory. The incense-burner stands beside her as the attribute of a goddess. As she passes, a gleam strikes on the wall behind her from some inlet suddenly opened, and admitting for a moment the sight of the upper world and she glances furtively towards it, immersed in thought. ![]() She is represented in a gloomy corridor of her palace, with the fatal fruit in her hand. Rossetti painted it at a time when his mental health was extremely precarious and his love for Jane Morris was at its most obsessive. His Proserpine, like his model Jane Morris, is an exquisitely beautiful woman, with delicate facial features, slender hands, and flawlessly pale skin set off by her thick raven hair. Although Rossetti inscribed the date 1874 on the picture, he worked for seven years on eight separate canvases before he finished with it. In his Proserpine, the artist illustrates in his typical Pre-Raphaelite style the Roman goddess Proserpina who lives in the underworld during Winter. History A version in coloured chalks, dated 1880. The painting discussed in this article is the so-called seventh version commissioned by Frederick Richards Leyland, now at the Tate Gallery, with the very similar final version now at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. Early versions were promised to Charles Augustus Howell. Rossetti began work on the painting in 1871 and painted at least eight separate versions, the last only completed in 1882, the year of his death. Proserpine (also Proserpina or Persephone) is an oil painting on canvas by English artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti, painted in 1874 and now in Tate Britain.
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