Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Persephone.
The gallery
Proserpine
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1874
Oil painting by the Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, modelled on Jane Morris. Proserpine stands in the gloom of the underworld holding the bitten pomegranate that binds her to Hades, while a stray gleam of light from the upper world falls on the wall behind her. The 1874 version belongs to Tate Britain, London.
The Rape of Proserpina
Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1621–1622
Marble sculpture group by the young Gian Lorenzo Bernini, housed in the Galleria Borghese, Rome. It captures the moment Pluto seizes Proserpina to carry her down to the underworld; the god's fingers pressing into her marble flesh remain one of the most celebrated feats of Baroque carving.
The Return of Persephone
Frederic Leighton, 1891
Late Victorian oil painting by Frederic Leighton, now in Leeds Art Gallery. Hermes guides Persephone up from the darkness of the underworld toward the outstretched arms of her mother Demeter, picturing the annual return that brings spring back to the earth.
On screen
In music & on stage
In play
Hades
Supergiant Games
Supergiant's Persephone is the missing queen whose return remakes the House — mother to Zagreus, and the secret the underworld has been keeping.
Hades II
Supergiant Games
She remains central in the sequel as Melinoë's mother — the queen whose absence and return still shape the war on Chronos.