Note: (extract from a museum explanatory label). The painting was inspired by the poetry in "Metamorphosis" IX-85 by Ovid. Ceres, the Goddess of harvests and cereals holds in her right hand "unas mazorcas de maiz" which literally means cobs of corn or maize. (Perhaps, by 1615, corn imported from the Americas became an established crop in Europe). In the left hand (as in most classic depictions), Demeter (Ceres) holds the cornucopia or the horn of the goat Amalthea whose milk nursed Hercules (Heracles) being filled by two nymphs with fruits to denote the "prodigalidad de la tierra" or the "prodigy" of the earth.