The Rape of Proserpina [SEP] creator
The Rape of Proserpina
The Rape of Proserpina () is a large Baroque marble sculptural group by Italian artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini, executed between 1621 and 1622. Bernini was only 23 years old at its completion. It depicts the Abduction of Proserpina, who is seized and taken to the underworld by the god Pluto.
Patronage.
As with many of Bernini's early works, it was commissioned by Cardinal Scipione Borghese, possibly alongside a portrait of Scipione's uncle Pope Paul V (who had died in 1621)
Proserpina sarcophagus
The Proserpina sarcophagus is a Roman marble sarcophagus from the first quarter of the third century AD, in
which Charlemagne was probably interred on 28 January 814 in Aachen cathedral. It is displayed today in the Aachen Cathedral Treasury.
Description.
The ancient myth of the Rape of Persephone is depicted in high relief on the sarcophagus. Persephone is carried away to the underworld by Pluto, the god of the underworld, with the help of Athena and Eros, on a quadriga led by the divine messenger Hermes