Pluto and Proserpine

In classical mythology Proserpine was the daughter of Ceres, the goddess of agriculture. Proserpine had been collecting flowers with her female companions when Pluto, the god of the underworld, fell in love with her and seized her while she was collecting flowers with her female companions. Pluto – struck by Cupid’s arrow – carries Proserpine to the underworld where she becomes his wife.

Physick, active in the 19th century, won the Royal Academy Gold Medal in 1850 for a relief entitled The Rape of Proserpine, probably this piece. He later also exhibited the same work at the Great Exhibition of 1851. The energetic composition recalls the work of Giambologna, in particular his Rape of the Sabines, in the Piazza della Signora, in Florence, a figure group Physick would have known. He was working and studying in Italy at around 1850