This painting was bought from Walter Crane for the Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe, in 1902, before being sold to the Berlin dealer Carl Haberstock in 1923. It was later bought by Brian Hooker, Professor of Rhetoric at Yale University, and later to his two surviving daughters.
Walter Crane’s painting The Fate of Persephone depicts the kidnapping of Persephone, the Greek goddess of spring and daughter of Zeus and Demeter, by her uncle Hades, the god of the dead.
In Crane’s painting, Hades is dressed more like a Roman general rather than in his signature dark robes, and is carrying a trident that is more commonly associated with his younger brother Poseidon. Nevertheless, the black horses on his chariot and the abduction of his niece and future queen Persephone, who was picking flowers in a field, allow viewers who are familiar with Greek mythology to immediately recognise the figures as Hades and Persephone. On the left, three women, the one on the very left with a veil possibly being Demeter, Persephone’s mother and the goddess of harvest, watching the kidnapping in shock.
The rape (derived from the Latin raptus, meaning bride kidnapping rather than sexual violence) of Persephone is significant as the story behind the Virgo constellation (the virgin commonly believed to be Persephone) and the origin story behind the four seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter. Although the time that Persephone spends with Hades every year in the underworld, much to Demeter’s chagrin, is commonly believed to be winter, in the original mythology, it was summer due to Greece’s climate.
The painting shows Persephone getting abducted by Hades. Hades appears to be in the getup of a Greek soldier, insinuating that he might have been in a disguise before abducting her as she picked flowers. Her mother in the background watches in horror as her daughter gets taken away by the god.
