"Ceres y dos Ninfas", c. 1615, figures by Peter Paul Rubens
(1577-1640) and animals and fruits by Frans Snyders
(1579-1657) - Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain.
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.
The version by Ovid of the "horn of plenty" or cornucopia
refers to a contest between Achelous, a gigantic river god,
with Hercules:
"... he grasped my strong stiff horn
in his fierce hand and broke it ...
my Naiads filled it
full of fragrant flowers and fruits
and hallowed it ...
from my horn now ...
wealth and riches flow ..."
