Ceres represented the discovery of corn and the transition from hunting to agriculture in human civilisation. So wrote the Greek poet Ovid (43 BC – AD 18) in Metamorphoses. Ceres is the goddess of the harvest in Roman mythology. In keeping with this, she is in this print holding a sickle in one hand, and her head is crowned with an ear of corn. At the same time, in her other hand Ceres is holding a torch. She lit it in the fires of Etna to use it in her constant search for her daughter Proserpina, who had been carried off from Sicily to the Underworld by Pluto. Ceres sought repeatedly in vain and then rose into the heavens. For this journey she attached two serpents to her chariot. They can also be seen in the print. Ceres was identified with the Greek goddess Demeter. The Greek “meter” is a word for mother, and Ceres was known as Ceres Mater. This identification reinforced the view that Ceres could also be associated with female fertility.
There is no sign of Ceres in Thorvaldsen’s art, though the abduction of Proserpina is portrayed in one of his early drawings (inv. no. C484).
