TitlePluto and Proserpine
Artist
Henry Bryson Burroughs
(American, 1869 - 1934)
Date1914
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsUnframed: 24 × 36 1/4 in.
Framed: 36 3/16 × 44 1/8 × 2 5/8 in.
SignedSigned at lower center: "Bryson Burroughs / 1914"
SubmissionNA diploma presentation, April 22, 1931
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY
Object number176-P
Label TextIn "Pluto and Proserpine," the flattened, slender figures painted in muted colors are typical of the work of Burroughs and attest to the influence of Puvis de Chavannes. Also characteristic is the plateau landscape with its low-lying, expansive valley. Burroughs made landscape studies for his mythological paintings during the summer at his vacation homes at West Haven Island, Maine, and near Peconic, Long Island (William M. Ivins, Jr., in Memorial Exhibition, xv)."Pluto and Proserpine" is one of a group of at least six paintings dealing with the story of the god of the Underworld, his wife, and her mother, Ceres. Contemporary critics often noted the "humor" in Burroughs's interpretations of myths; they saw an element of modern life in his sometimes odd figural arrangements and naive facial expressions. Here, Proserpine is formally isolated with an uncertain look on her face, perhaps preparing to be taken back to Hades on her husband's chariot.
There is some confusion surrounding this painting and another of the subject by Burroughs which uses an alternative name for the goddess in the title, "Pluto and Persephone," 1916-20, (in the artist's estate at the time of the memorial exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art). The Academy's "Pluto and Proserpine" may have been exhibited several times at the Montross Gallery in New York, and at the Buffalo Fine Arts Academy between 1918 and 1921.
